Guo Shanhui, vice president of Dongguan Taiwanese Business Association, made the above comments on the economic competition between the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta in China's current economic development. Dongguan Taiwanese Business Association is the largest Taiwanese business association in Chinese mainland.
Guo Shanhui himself is in the luxury furniture business. He has built a factory in Dongguan for many years. Among the European and American furniture manufacturers in the world, his enterprise ranks among the top five in the world. But not long ago, he set up a branch factory near Shanghai, which showed signs of being uprooted. Because of his relocation, seven local Taiwan-funded enterprises that supported his production also moved to Shanghai. There, the local government gave him dozens of acres of land to expand the scale of production. Because of his large-scale enterprise and new investment, whenever he returns there, officials will meet him at the airport and ask him carefully. According to reports, the vast majority of Taiwanese businessmen investing in Dongguan have set up factories or branches in the Yangtze River Delta, and the worst is to set up offices.
The Pearl River Delta, which once became the pearl of the coast because of the reform and opening up, is facing aggressive competition from the Yangtze River Delta. This kind of pressure can be reflected in the three "attach great importance" put forward by the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee and the provincial government not long ago. One of them is: attach great importance to the rapid development momentum of the Yangtze River Delta with Shanghai as the leader, and propose to learn from their successful experience. Indeed, if the Pearl River Delta economy is highly dependent on the export-oriented economy, the impact of foreign capital going northward on the Pearl River Delta cannot be overestimated, because it directly affects the future of this region.
When we witnessed the world's top 500 enterprises gathered in Shanghai, leading enterprises in the electronics industry in Taiwan Province Province rushed to the Yangtze River Delta, especially when Taiwanese businessmen from the Pearl River Delta flocked northward, we had to worry about the future of the Pearl River Delta. For the Pearl River Delta, there is indeed a profound reflection, and on this basis, re-locate their own problems.
Market: Not as vast as the Yangtze River Delta.
When talking about why he set up a branch in Shanghai instead of investing more locally, Guo Shanhui expressed his views: "The Yangtze River Delta policy is more flexible and preferential, and the government does not charge. This is a big difference. Dongguan collected more money. The investment there is very active, the government service is good, the window is unified and the efficiency is high. "
"As far as the domestic market is concerned, if we want to make the scale bigger, we should set up factories in East China, Beijing, Tianjin and Tangshan respectively. If the scale is not large enough, stay in Dongguan. "
Guo Shanhui's opinions are very representative in Taiwan Province society. The issues he talked about are not only meaningful to Taiwanese businessmen, but also factors that any foreign businessman must consider when deciding to invest. From the market point of view, the Yangtze River Delta includes Shanghai, southern Jiangsu and northeastern Zhejiang, with a land area of 99,678.5 square kilometers, a population of 74,705,500 (at most 1999) and a GDP1374 billion yuan. There are four counties and cities in the Pearl River Delta, including Guangzhou, with a land area of 4 1.698 square kilometers, a total population of 2,2621.400 (up to 1.999) and a GDP of 643.9 billion yuan. Judging from several figures, the difference between the two is more than double.
Judging from the level of urbanization, the Yangtze River Delta is also higher than the Pearl River Delta. This region has formed an urban belt with Shanghai as the center and Nanjing, Suzhou, Hangzhou and Ningbo as the sub-centers. The urban system is complete and the quality of urban planning is high. In contrast, there are still some gaps in the quality of urban planning, the rationality of urban layout and the development of urban functions in the Pearl River Delta, showing the characteristics of over-reliance on the "Hong Kong factor" and less market radiation than the "Yangtze River Delta".
Due to geographical separation, the Pearl River Delta has no radiation to the mainland in economic history. Since the reform and opening up 20 years ago, it has always been famous for its large-scale import and export processing trade, and its radiation and influence on the market are mainly abroad rather than at home. Therefore, its contribution to China's economy is mainly manifested in its role as a major export province. This is just the opposite of the Yangtze River Delta with Shanghai as the center.
Judging from the overall economic strength, among the 35 cities with the strongest economic strength in Chinese mainland, 10 is located in the Yangtze River Delta, which is one of the top 100 counties in China, accounting for half. Such an attractive market is naturally something that no foreign investor can ignore. In fact, the vast majority of foreign investors who go north from the Pearl River Delta or do not go to the Pearl River Delta to directly invest in the Yangtze River Delta are all directed at this market. In the words of Zhang Hanwen, president of Dongguan Taiwanese Business Association, "it is for domestic sales."
But the problem is that the proportion of domestic sales in the Pearl River Delta region used to be 30%. Why is it not attractive to foreign investors?
President Zhang Hanwen revealed the reason: "In the past, there were 30% domestic sales, but no one actually touched domestic sales. What if the customs comes to check? The proportion and amount are not easy to confirm, and the customs here are too strict! "
Zhang Hanwen's main business is shoemaking, but the shoes he produces are munitions for the US military, which belongs to high-tech footwear. After the September 1 1 incident, other Taiwanese businessmen's business was sluggish, but he "has a good scenery here". By his own admission, he and his family have also invested in Jiangsu recently. One is to invest in high-tech eco-agricultural projects in Jiangyin, and the other is to build a garment factory in Wuxi.
Zhang Hanwen said: "The customs problem is actually the same all over the country, but the customs here seem to be particularly strict." In contrast, some places in the Yangtze River Delta attach great importance to this heart disease of Taiwanese businessmen. In order to attract Taiwanese businessmen from the Pearl River Delta to invest in them, they even brought the local customs commissioner with them when they came to attract investment. It is understood that when Kunshan organized a business delegation in Dongguan, the accompanying local customs chief explained various customs policies and regulations to local Taiwanese businessmen in detail and gave them reassurance.
The policy is the same all over the country, but the operation is very particular. Of course, businessmen are the most realistic and will compare.
Human resources: encountering constraints
The low quality of human resources in the Pearl River Delta region makes it difficult to obtain a large number of outstanding talents, which is the consistent impression of Taiwanese businessmen in the mainland and the north.
Zhang Hanwen, president of Dongguan Taiwanese Business Association, said: "It is more difficult to obtain talents in the Pearl River Delta. Some senior talents have to go to the mainland to recruit and even go to mainland universities to book university graduates. " Guo shanhui, vice president of the association, also said: the labor force here is basically foreign population, and the supply of universities is insufficient. The over-development of Dongguan city and poor living environment make senior talents reluctant to come.
In fact, workers in Dongguan and the Pearl River Delta are not only "migrants", but most of them are mainland farmers. In rural areas of the mainland, nine-year compulsory education has not been popularized, which means that a considerable number of workers in Dongguan have not even graduated from junior high school, and their quality can be imagined. The design engineer of a local Hong Kong-owned toy factory told the reporter: "Why are these workers so slow that they can't teach!" When it comes to management talents, even senior talents, that is the weakness of the Pearl River Delta.
According to a statistic, in 1999, the population of Shanghai, Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces accounted for 10.4% of the country, while the number of universities, university teachers, college students, scientific research institutions and scientific and technological personnel accounted for 13.9%, 14.9% and/respectively. In the same period, Guangdong's population accounted for 5.8% of the whole country, and the above other indicators were 4.7%, 4.3%, 5.4%, 5.2% and 3. 1% respectively. According to the per capita ratio, every million people in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai have 1. 13 universities and 5.59 research institutions, and every million people have 2.54 university teachers and 30.37 college students. Dr. Hu Yong, from the Institute of Land Development and Regional Economy of the State Planning Commission, commented that the scientific and technological innovation ability of the Pearl River Delta is generally not high, and there is a lack of well-known research universities, which is not commensurate with its GDP ranking among the best in the country.
As for attracting foreign talents, a responsible cadre of the Guangdong Provincial Personnel Department, who asked not to be named, revealed: At present, Guangdong Province lags far behind Shanghai and even behind Beijing in attracting overseas talents. In attracting mainland talents, although a number of talents have been attracted through high income in recent years, compared with the actual demand, it is still insufficient. Moreover, in the actual operation of introducing talents, there is a phenomenon of emphasizing form over content: a high-tech enterprise in Guangdong has advertised for talents in a local newspaper all the year round, but turned away a large number of senior talents. What is the reason? According to insiders, this is an enterprise advertising itself in this form, followed by recruitment. At the same time, because job advertisements belong to classified advertisements, the fees are cheap, which can be described as killing two birds with one stone; On the other hand, many enterprises in the Pearl River Delta often don't want master's or doctor's degrees when recruiting personnel, but they can only be ordinary clerks after recruiting personnel. This phenomenon shows that the local ability to digest and absorb talents is not strong.
The restriction of human resources on the economic development of the Pearl River Delta is not only manifested in the lack of talents and the low quality of human resources: because the local labor force is almost all farmers from inland provinces, the labor force is extremely mobile, and it is difficult for local foreign-funded enterprises to cultivate stable and skilled labor force. What is particularly serious is that with the gradual compulsory implementation of social labor insurance in the Pearl River Delta, some mainland migrant workers often "jump ship" among enterprises in order to obtain some insurance compensation, resulting in losses for foreign-funded enterprises, while the situation in the Yangtze River Delta is the opposite. The reporter's interview in Xiaoshan, Zhejiang a few years ago can well explain why foreign-funded enterprises would rather pay higher labor costs than the Pearl River Delta and invest in the Yangtze River Delta.
That is a Hong Kong-funded enterprise. Before the enterprise entered Xiaoshan Development Zone, the Development Zone Management Committee made clear the relevant regulations to the boss in Hong Kong: the enterprise can recruit workers according to its own requirements, but the salary cannot be lower than the minimum wage stipulated by local laws. Second, labor and social insurance must be paid. Under this premise, the trade union organizations in the development zone will try their best to help workers work with peace of mind and hard work. According to the calculation of the boss in Hong Kong, although the labor cost is slightly more expensive than that in the Pearl River Delta, the workers are all locals, all of whom graduated from high schools, and many of them are graduates from technical schools or vocational schools, which is also worthwhile. So, as long as I don't do it, I simply invited an old man who used to be the secretary of the village Committee to be the chairman of the trade union. Since then, employers and employees have lived in harmony, and workers respect their posts and love their careers. Some women workers have been working in factories since they were seventeen or eighteen, and they still don't leave the factory until they get married and have children. In contrast, this situation rarely occurs in the Pearl River Delta, and labor disputes have become the normal state of labor relations in the Pearl River Delta. Comparing the two places, it is quite clear who is more attractive in the human resources environment.
Government services: slightly inferior
When it comes to the shortage of government services, we can't help but mention the "excessive development" of cities in the Pearl River Delta.
From the perspective of urban management, China government has always set the staffing of management departments according to the local permanent population. The reality of cities in the Pearl River Delta region is that the rapid development of export-oriented economy needs a lot of labor, which leads to the temporary population of migrant workers greatly exceeding the local registered population. In Dongguan, Shenzhen and other cities, the ratio of local population to foreign population has reached 1:4 or even more, but the staffing of government management departments is still allocated according to the proportion of registered population, and low management efficiency is inevitable. The social security and urban traffic problems that have plagued foreign-funded enterprises in Dongguan and other places for a long time are the consequences of the city's "excessive development".
As the largest manufacturing center in Guangdong Province, it is also one of the cities with the strongest economic strength. Any foreigner who comes to Dongguan for the first time will be surprised by the chaos of urban traffic management. Reverse driving and running red lights are everywhere, motorcycles are running all over the street, and vehicles are full of dust. What's more, sometimes it's hard to find the police on the whole street. Zhang Hanwen said: "The establishment of administrative personnel, public security and traffic police in Dongguan can't keep up with the requirements of developing Dongguan into a big immigrant city. It is definitely inappropriate to set up the establishment according to the local population. The floating population in Dongguan has reached 67 million. The establishment of the city (managers) failed to keep up, and the establishment of the police failed to keep up, so the security team was called in to make up for it. The security team has not received formal training and its quality is very poor. Some are not serious people at all, which leads to many problems. " In this case, it is not surprising that public security is not good. The stationmaster of a local media reporter station in Guangdong Province commented: "It's not that Dongguan doesn't want to have good public security, but that it has so many establishments and nothing to do!"
However, according to Zhang Hanwen, some public security personnel do not pay attention to tactics when performing official duties, which affects the business of Taiwanese businessmen. "When it is suspected that Taiwan-funded factories are illegal, there is no evidence and they are still under investigation. They suddenly took away several people, all of whom were the core figures of the factory, causing the factory to stop production. For export enterprises, it is impossible to make up for the loss of on-time delivery. "
Zhang Hanwen said that some grass-roots governments in Dongguan have violated the law. "For example, in the past, foreign-funded enterprises usually found a suitable price, sold the scraps produced in the production process of their own factories, and then gave bonuses or benefits to employees. However, later, they demanded to sell them to waste treatment plants related to the government. They deliberately lowered the price, so Taiwanese businessmen were unwilling to sell the waste to them. As a result, a vicious incident of looting by force occurred. This is so wrong! Because the corner waste actually belongs to the property of the owner, how to deal with it is the owner's own business. "
When it comes to East China, Taiwanese businessmen unanimously reflect that the local government cherishes the opportunity of attracting investment and doubles the courtesy. Zhang Hanwen said: "There are dozens of cities in Dongguan that invite us to invest, and Taiwanese businessmen who are already in Dongguan are their special targets. The government departments and banks over there come directly to communicate with you, and we can communicate directly with their county and city leaders at any time. "
According to the reporter's long-term observation, the most powerful way for the Yangtze River Delta government to attract foreign businessmen (especially Taiwanese businessmen) is to take care of and regulate them. Some cities in Jiangsu and Zhejiang are in the initial stage of attracting investment, and they take care of foreign investors, which is often implemented by local leading cadres. Because attracting foreign investment is related to political achievements, local responsible cadres often help foreign businessmen solve problems in person, and establish fixed communication channels with these foreign businessmen, which can especially give them a sense of security with China cultural background. On the other hand, for large amount of foreign investment, the local government corresponds to standards and excellent services. Because large enterprises are different from small and medium-sized enterprises, they need the care of the government in the gray area of policy. What they value most is supervision, and Shanghai, once the base camp of China's planned economy, has a tradition in this respect.
Governments in the Yangtze River Delta have different ways of dealing with different foreign businessmen, and they often use both hands, which has won the general favor of foreign businessmen.
Urban division of labor and industrial integration: still in the "Warring States period"
Recently, there is a striking phenomenon in the economic development of the Yangtze River Delta region, that is, the Yangtze River Delta region is gradually forming economic integration. All localities are consciously aware of Shanghai's leading position and begin to integrate and allocate their own resources, forming different urban positioning and division of labor.
At the government level, the two provinces and one municipal government have strengthened communication and coordination with each other as never before. At present, there have been regular annual exchanges between the executive vice governor and the executive vice mayor. In the words of Jiang Yiren, executive vice mayor of Shanghai, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang have the same understanding of the development prospects of the Yangtze River Delta. In the next step, two provinces and one city should comprehensively strengthen regional economic cooperation, promote economic complementarity and interaction, give play to their respective advantages and develop together. In terms of foreign investment, the current reality is: manufacturing goes to Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and commercial services go to Shanghai; Small and medium-sized enterprises go to Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and large enterprises go to Shanghai. Now, high-tech Taiwanese businessmen have gathered in Kunshan, Suzhou, Wuxi and other places, forming a complete IT manufacturing community. Shanghai provides all-round services for surrounding enterprises before, during and after delivery. According to Hong Kong's Wen Wei Po, the governments of Shanghai, Kunshan, Suzhou and Wujiang have gradually reached the understanding of "dislocation development and formation of characteristics". Domestic enterprises, such as Chunlan Group, claim to have two headquarters, "Taizhou is the manufacturing headquarters, Shanghai is the investment headquarters, Taizhou pays the manufacturing tax, and Shanghai pays the investment tax." This kind of urban community with different functions and positioning provides a very good choice and market for foreign investors. In contrast, the economic cooperation in the Pearl River Delta region is quite disappointing, and it is most appropriate to describe it as "the Warring States Period".
As far as infrastructure is concerned, in such a narrow area of the Pearl River Delta, there are actually several airports in Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Guangzhou at the same time, and now Guangzhou is going to build a new airport. What about port construction? At present, there are Huangpu Port in Guangzhou, Yantian Port in Shenzhen, Gaolan Port in Zhuhai and Nansha Port in Zhongshan, and a new port will be built in the South China Sea. From the macro-economic point of view, there is no doubt that there is a waste of resources, but it also exposes a problem: the major cities in the Pearl River Delta have their own attempts and cannot coordinate and communicate with each other. Especially in the Pearl River Delta region, there is a lack of a recognized leading city.
In terms of urban functions and positioning, it is reported that the only cities in Guangdong Province that explicitly support the positioning of "central cities" are Guangzhou and Shenzhen. In the first half of this year, Tong Xing, secretary of the Dongguan Municipal Party Committee, even announced to the media that "Dongguan will be built into a modern central city". It is said that higher-level leaders support this new orientation. From the industry point of view, Shenzhen has an annual "high-tech fair" and Dongguan has an "electric fair". Shunde, Zhuhai, Zhongshan, Huizhou and Shenzhen are all engaged in home appliance manufacturing, and the industrial convergence is very obvious.
The result of the Warring States War was a waste of resources, the overall strength could not be formed, and the competitive advantage of its regional economy was naturally greatly reduced.
Way out: the idea of "Greater Pearl River Delta"
Through the analysis of the above four aspects, we can see that in terms of market and human resources, the Pearl River Delta can't compete with the Yangtze River Delta for quite some time, especially human resources, which can't solve the problem in a short time; As for government services, especially regional economic cooperation, there is still much room for improvement in the Pearl River Delta. Most importantly, the Pearl River Delta must be further economically integrated with Hong Kong to establish a "Greater Pearl River Delta" economic zone. In this process, Hong Kong will consciously maintain its leading position and play a leading role as an Asia-Pacific financial center. If this can be achieved, China's position as the "Greater Pearl River Delta" will be irreplaceable for a long time.
To achieve the above goals, governments at all levels in the Pearl River Delta must get rid of the narrow vision of being exclusive to others and truly understand the profound meaning of "thinking before being rich". If this problem is not completely solved ideologically, the future of the Pearl River Delta will be really worrying.
The issue of establishing a "Greater Pearl River Delta" economic zone in cooperation with Hong Kong is of decisive significance to the future of Guangdong. At present, there are two problems that must be solved, one is the coordination of the interests of both sides, and the other is the attitude of the central authorities, because this involves "one country, two systems" after all. As far as the first question is concerned, both sides must balance and coordinate their respective interests. In the future, Guangdong will focus on developing modern service industries, electronic information, software technology, biological engineering, new materials, environmental protection engineering and other high-tech industries, while Hong Kong's future economy will take the route of value-added services and consolidate its advantages as an international financial center, a tourist center and a trade, transportation and logistics center. The Singapore media commented that "Hong Kong should maintain its inherent advantages, and the focus of Guangdong's future economic development may compress Hong Kong's advantages to finance only. In fact, if the Guangdong provincial government does not co-ordinate the infrastructure construction in the Pearl River Delta, such as Gaolan Port in Zhuhai, Nansha Port in Zhongshan and Yantian Port in Shenzhen, it will compete with container terminals in Hong Kong at low cost in the future. " In order to balance and coordinate their respective interests, we must implement the principle that one party does less or does not do harmful things that are beneficial to the other and does more things that are beneficial to both sides.
As for the attitude of the central authorities, Guangdong and Hong Kong cannot avoid it because it involves the practice of "one country, two systems". At the "Guangdong-Hong Kong-Taiwan Economic Cooperation Forum" held in Hong Kong at the end of August this year, it was just revealed that residents of Shenzhen, Shanghai and Beijing could visit Hong Kong visa-free for one day, and the Ministry of Public Security immediately said that it was difficult to operate. Therefore, if the rapid economic development of the Pearl River Delta in the past 20 years has largely benefited from the policies of the central authorities, then the future of the Pearl River Delta still depends on the determination of the central authorities. The establishment of the "Greater Pearl River Delta" economic zone cannot be decided by Guangdong and Hong Kong alone.