Economic level
In the United States and some developed countries with very developed economies, its industrial structure is generally manifested as follows. Agriculture has shrunk greatly, accounting for a small proportion, and industry is not very large. The finance and logistics of modern service industry, including the well-known IT service industry, have developed rapidly. In some developing countries, we generally see that their industries are developing rapidly, accounting for a large proportion, while in some backward countries, especially some small backward countries, the agricultural economy relies on a single resource to achieve economic growth. This gives us a very intuitive concept that a country's economic development level is closely related to its industrial structure. This is true for a country and also for a region. Developed areas like our country, such as Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and other big cities and areas where large industrial clusters are concentrated, not only have good industries, but also the financial center and financial industry of our country are developed, including other tourism, and agriculture in backward areas in the west accounts for a relatively large proportion. These phenomena and laws are the same from the perspective of a country and a region. To some extent, we can see the economic development stage and economic income level of a region through its industrial structure characteristics.
judge
Of course, there will be some different performances in some specific industries, such as heavy chemical industries with high energy consumption. With the progress of technology and the continuous improvement of production efficiency and energy saving efficiency, its energy consumption is not necessarily high. The energy consumption is relatively high, but the technology content is high. We can see that there is no direct correspondence between the technical level of industrial development and its energy consumption. Some high-tech industries do have low energy consumption, while others do not. For example, steelmaking is actually an important scientific and technological progress field that can absorb various control technologies and processing and smelting technologies. Its technical content is not necessarily worse than our computer, and it should belong to a well-deserved high-tech industry. But from the whole industry, as a heavy chemical industry, it needs a lot of energy to support it. Now we understand the concept of high-tech industry and should not be simply limited to IT and software outsourcing as we said. That's not the concept. In many chemical industries, with the progress of science and technology and the needs of competition, its scientific and technological content is constantly improving, and it will be high. For example, the technical patents in the chemical industry are really on the whole, whether from the perspective of scientific theory research or entity research, in some high-end parts of scientific research, or even at the top of some scientific research pyramids. You can't help but say that it is a kind of high technology.
We know from the general law that with the increase of income level, people's consumption demand will change, and the change of consumption demand will lead to the change of consumption structure. In order to meet the needs of people's consumption structure at different income stages, our industry composed of enterprises must make corresponding changes. With the development of economy, people's income level is growing steadily, and the consumption structure is also changing. When the problem of food and clothing was solved in the past, the well-off society was solved. Housing and transportation problems have been solved, and other luxuries are needed to guide the whole industry to adapt to its development. Markets that meet the upgrading of consumer industries can have great support, such as automobiles, which have become leading industries, pillar industries and leading industries. We can see that the income level leads to the change of consumption structure, and the consumption structure gradually guides the change of industrial structure, which is the fundamental reason for the change of industrial structure.
In addition, there are other functions, such as global manufacturing transfer, which are analyzed based on the actual cases of industrial development in the Pearl River Delta or Yangtze River Delta. As we all know, different industries have different requirements for factor conditions in the development process. Some industries are capital-intensive, some are technology-intensive and some are labor-intensive. At different stages of economic development, the cost of this factor is different. Generally speaking, when the income level is very low and the economic development level is low, the labor factor is sufficient, the capital factor is scarce, and the technical factor is even scarcer. At this time, these industries with prominent labor-intensive characteristics will naturally get better development. This has formed a number of labor-intensive industries, and some industries that rely on the cost of labor and land, such as the textile and garment industry, are a typical example, including some labor-intensive industries that used to focus on export processing in the Pearl River Delta. These labor-intensive processed products are actually transferred from other countries. For example, the textile and clothing industry first started to rise in Europe, then moved to the United States, then moved from the United States to the four little dragons in Asia, then moved to Taiwan Province Province, then gradually moved to China, and now moved to some countries in Southeast Asia. In this transfer process, it is precisely because of the change of factor cost that this industry has to find the region with the strongest factor competitiveness.
In the early days of reform and opening up, Guangdong and the Pearl River Delta region, relying on the low-cost advantage of China's labor force and the policy support of the central government, can be said to be a golden opportunity for the development of these industries. Our development depended on the low labor, land and factor costs at that time. Laws that were effective in the past will also be effective now. When Guangdong and even China's economy grew rapidly, low labor costs ceased to exist, land resources became increasingly scarce, and the costs became higher and higher. These industries lost their competitiveness, so they moved out one after another.
What industries will the Pearl River Delta develop after the transfer? It can't be said that after the transfer, our place will form a hollow area, and there will be no future development. At this time, it is facing a very serious theme, how to achieve sustained economic growth through industrial structure upgrading under the background of rising factor costs and intensified competition.
economic development
The Pearl River Delta is the front position of China's reform and opening up, and also the pioneer area of China's economic development. Its industrial growth and its structural characteristics can actually reflect some problems of China's industrial structure change. As far as we know, the export processing zone established by the Pearl River Delta with its geographical advantages, good ports and links with the international market is very competitive in the world market competition, including some mechanical and electrical products and traditional export products. Electronic components are growing rapidly and on a large scale, and they are very competitive internationally, which really makes people feel prosperous and energetic, which is also an important reason for the rapid economic growth in Guangdong.
At this time, we cannot help but see the growth of this trend, and its conditions are changing. As labor costs rise, land costs rise. After this cost increase, the basis of the original competitive advantage is constantly eroded. Where does the new competitiveness come from? If it is not competitive, it will be easily eliminated in the future market competition. Let's take a look at the recent rapid rise of some countries in Southeast Asia, including other inland areas, which poses a severe challenge to the industrial model of the Pearl River Delta. What do we do when we ask this question, the answer is naturally in front of us, that is, change it and realize industrial upgrading.
There may be two directions for industrial upgrading. The first direction is to go to the high end of the industrial chain on the basis of existing industries. Through brand cultivation, investment in technology research and development, and improvement of technology competitiveness, we will go in this direction. For example, the automobile manufacturing industry in Guangdong Province, including some traditional export products and electronic products manufacturing industries, used to be processing plants, and we earned a little hard money. Although we are away from home at both ends and earn more money than the mainland, it is actually very meager. Because you are only the most passive link in the industrial chain, the profit is very meager. Now that the environment has changed, even meager profits can't be guaranteed. What should we do? We should take this opportunity to jump out and seize the high-end profits of the industrial chain by improving our R&D capabilities and improving our control over core technologies. For example, the electronics manufacturing industry in Guangdong, such as ZTE and Huawei, is a very successful example. They have already seen the possible changes today in advance, made strategic reserves in advance, and constantly moved towards the high end of the industrial chain in R&D and market strategy expansion. When you go to the high end of the industrial chain, you will naturally get rid of the shackles and bottlenecks brought by this level, which means that you will sublimate.
For most industrial chains, there is room and capital to really do things like electronics manufacturing ZTE and Huawei. Why do you say that? If we first entered the export processing link by relying on low labor costs, or in areas with certain technology and capital, we just did other people's processing workshops. At this time, because there was no manufacturing base, market base and technology before, I could only work as a processing workshop and follow others as apprentices. But after so many years of development, we have gradually laid the foundation in these fields. Our manufacturing capacity is often the highest in the world and the largest manufacturing base in the world. Therefore, we have a comparative advantage in cost and can achieve economies of scale.
One more thing, we have accumulated good manufacturing technology, which has created conditions for us to make a leap in research and development technology of high-end core components. For example, in the automobile industry, we didn't have the conditions to do research and development and design our own models and engines before, but now we have a good market and sufficient economic resources to support it. Compared with the original, we are taller and stronger, and it is possible to harvest the fruits of research and development.
On the other hand, the characteristics of global industrial transfer and the change of industrial organization form have also lowered the barriers to research and development of many high-end technologies. For example, in the global automobile industry, many large foreign companies have separated the R&D center from the whole vehicle, allowing the R&D center to provide services for themselves and the outside world, which invisibly provides opportunities for our enterprises. After comparison, the R&D barrier is declining, while our ability to cross the barrier is improving. At this time, it is time for us to cross technical barriers and gradually improve. This kind of promotion can fundamentally upgrade the industrial structure for us and break through the fundamental way of factor constraints currently encountered. Of course, it will take some time.
Development of petrochemical industry
Judging from the future economic development trend of China, heavy chemical industry will still play an important role for a long time. Because we want to upgrade the whole consumption structure and realize economic growth, we must do a good job in the heavy chemical industry and finish our homework at this specific stage, so the heavy chemical industry should have a full development. Specific to the petrochemical industry, there is no doubt that there is great room for development. Not to mention the demand growth of chemical products as raw materials to meet the needs of all walks of life, it means that the demand for refined oil will increase with the improvement of people's consumption level. The more cars are used, the growth rate will exceed the economic growth rate, so there is a lot of room for market expansion in the future. If we don't have enough production capacity to ensure such demand, we must import. In addition to importing crude oil, it may also import refined oil, which will greatly depend on foreign markets. More importantly, I gave many profits from crude oil to refined oil to others. Considering the need of rapid growth in the future, it is necessary and important to increase the capacity layout of China's petrochemical industry from the perspective of the development of the national petrochemical industry.
From the layout point of view, Guangzhou, as the economic hub and core of South China, serves a large area, and in the past few years, it has also formed important cluster conditions in the petrochemical industry, including close coastal transportation, overseas oil and overseas energy entry. It is a country with convenient conditions in this respect, and it is close to the terminal market in South China, and it is a distribution center. However, in the process of large-scale development of Guangdong petrochemical industry, we should pay attention to another problem, that is, Guangzhou's current resource and environmental capacity. Because of some constraints in the early stage of development, at this stage, when we focus on developing heavy chemical industry and chemical industry, we must introduce international advanced technology as much as possible to improve efficiency in environmental protection and resources. It is necessary not only to build an industry, but also to build a high-tech and high-level industry that is completely coordinated with the local resources and environment. For example, the modern chemical industry, with the support of many high technologies, can be a very environmentally friendly industry and a very green industry, and it can also be done. And indeed, from the perspective of Guangdong's local economy, this industry will still be an industry with high profit rate in the future, so it will also make great contributions to the development of local economy. As an important base for the development of China petrochemical industry in the future, I think this is a matter of course.
development direction
It has a great judgment on the future development prospect of the whole China automobile. The unanimous view is that they are full of confidence in the long-term growth prospects of China's automobile industry in the future. With the increase of income and the solution of housing and transportation problems, it will take a long time for the population of 654.38+0.3 billion to enter the automobile society. So everyone is optimistic about the long-term growth of the automobile industry. Under such a big market background, China will also face new market opportunities. With the upgrading of China's automobile manufacturing capacity and manufacturing technology, China's automobile export is not far off. For example, when our manufacturing scale is large, after the batch comes up, the cost is reduced, and your products naturally have good competitiveness. This is a simple but important economic law. The effect is very good. In the past two years, we have also seen the rapid growth of China's automobile and parts exports, especially parts exports. Our vehicles and spare parts have been realized now, especially the surplus of vehicles, which is a very celebratory thing for China. But this is just the beginning. We all expect that in the near future, China's automobile exports will become as common as China's household appliances exports. This day is worth looking forward to.