SOE dependency hindering region’s revival

A SURVEY on the employment of college graduates this year suggests that the employment rate for those in Northeast China continues to drop following the annual exodus of local talents. Beijing News commented on Wednesday:

The continuing departure of college graduates from Northeast China, which comprises Heilongjiang, Jilin, and Liaoning provinces, is a foreseeable result of the area’s sluggish growth in recent years.

An industrial powerhouse before the 1980s, Northeast China seems stuck in a wretched economic plight accompanied by plummeting GDP growth. In the early 1980s its economy accounted for about 13 percent of China’s GDP. It then dropped to an all-time low of 8.77 percent in 2007 before climbing to 9.45 percent in 2012, thanks to a national strategy implemented in 2003 to revitalize the region.

The hoped-for economic recovery, however, did not arrive, as the figure plummeted to just 5.9 percent in 2014. It is therefore no surprise that more college graduates are choosing to start their career elsewhere, although this in turn hurts the already unpromising growth.

The economic structure backed by State-owned enterprises is responsible for the dilemma in Northeast

According to a guideline issued by the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council, China’s Cabinet, on Monday, China has drawn up a two-step overall plan for its future urban and rural community governance.

The first step is to basically form an urban and rural community governance system led by grassroots CPC organizations by 2020. By China, where the growth of the secondary sector has been higher than that in many other areas. Even in 2010, the year marking Northeast China’s best economic performance in recent decades, the growth of the three northeastern provinces’ service sectors still lagged behind the growth of the service sector in East and South China.

Experience suggests that private enterprises have not only revitalized the economy in the Pearl River and Yangtze River delta regions, but also created scores of jobs. The longevity of the SOE-driven growth in Northeast China and the obsolete recruitment inclinations of many SOEs, mean there are not enough jobs in the region for local graduates.

Unlike private employers that offer decent pay to competent job seekers regardless of their “background”, SOEs normally do not have competitive incentives for graduates. Revitalizing Northeast China requires local governments to remove the institutional barriers to the market-oriented forces.

Urban and rural community governance

that time China’s urban and rural community governance capacity is expected to have remarkably improved, and public services, public management and public security in grassroots communities will be effectively guaranteed.

The second step is to form a mature and stable urban and rural community governance system within another five to 10 years, in order to provide strong support to the Party’s grassroots governance, and lay a solid foundation for the construction of a national governance system.

According to the document, the community governance system will also feature public participation.

Issues such as the basic role of autonomous organizations, the participation of social groups and the functions of communities are also included in the guideline, which called for increased efforts to resolve disputes within communities. Party congress delegates, legislators, political advisers and CPC members and officials should maintain contact with communities and their residents via proper channels, the guideline states.

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