Western development

AS CHINA’S ECONOMIC GROWTH DECELERATED to 7.5 percent year-on-year in the second quarter and still faces downturn pressures, maintaining sustainable development is particularly important if the government is to meet its pledge that it will keep employment from sagging and improve people’s livelihoods.

During his three-day inspection tour of northwestern Gansu province that concluded on Monday, Premier Li Keqiang sent a clear message that the government will promote an economic takeoff in its vast less-developed western region as a way to bolster the country’s sustainable development.

“The largest space for China’s further growth lies in its central and western areas as the country’s economic structure faces a prominent imbalance between urban and rural areas and among different regions,” Li said. “Western development serves as an important prop for the sustainable and healthy development of the national economy, as well as a requirement for social justice, and so differentiated economic policies should be adopted for the region.”

China’s economic performance over the past 30-plus years has, to a large extent, been attributable to the development and prosperity of labor-intensive and export-oriented manufacturing enterprises in its eastern coastal areas.

However, dwindling external demand in the context of the global economic slowdown and ever-rising labor costs in recent years have presented a harsher-than-ever environment to the survival and development of these once-vibrant businesses, and they also undercut the possibility that China can continue depending on the developed eastern coastal regions to power its economic development.

Compared with the coastal areas, which are losing steam, the less-developed western provinces, which boast a broader market, abundant labor and lower costs, are about to be fired up. If their huge potential is fully tapped, it will not only help the country’s ongoing economic restructuring, but also give renewed vigor to the national economy and create jobs.

With preferential policies to speed it on its way, the vast western region can take over the baton from coastal regions and push the economy onward.