Zhai Wei (Executive Director, Competition Law Research Center, East China University of Political Science and Law, Ph.D. in Antitrust Law, Mainz University, Germany)
The development status of regional market integration in the Yangtze River Delta is composed of a number of endogenous and exogenous variables (such as fair competition review performance, regional economic differences, industrial development patterns, national development strategies, and international market environment). In the process of implementing the fair competition review system, in order to avoid the damage to local-based interests or the consequences of review and accountability, policy-making organs may weaken and blur their inherent market supervision responsibilities and refuse to formulate policies and measures that have a positive effect on promoting competition. In order to deeply implement the Yangtze River Delta regional integration development strategy and overcome the chronic disease of policy-making organs abusing their powers or neglecting to implement the fair competition review system, it is necessary for the three provinces and one municipal government of the Yangtze River Delta to build a third-party assessment mechanism for fair competition review across administrative divisions from a macro perspective in accordance with the Guidelines for the Implementation of Fair Competition Review Third-Party Assessment of Fair Competition Review by the State Administration for Market Regulation, and to establish a unified selection criteria, selection process and selection expert database on third-party assessment subjects in the Yangtze River Delta region. It also introduces a unified and homogenized fair competition review third-party assessment tool to ensure the detectability and uniform distribution of the implementation performance of the fair competition review system in the Yangtze River Delta region.
Integration of the Yangtze River Delta
The types of third-party assessment tools for fair competition review across administrative divisions should not only include methods and methods such as comprehensive surveys, sample surveys, network surveys, field research, public opinion tracking, and expert demonstrations listed in Article 14 of the Guidelines for the Implementation of Third-Party Assessments in Fair Competition Review, but should also include a unified market evaluation index system with quantifiability, verifiability and operability characteristics. The index system should follow the logical derivation mode of "fair competition review implementation performance" backwards from the "effect of the integrated development of the market in various administrative blocks in the Yangtze River Delta", and form a performance appraisal mechanism for the implementation of fair competition review of the external circular feedback correction paradigm, so as to form a positive incentive mechanism for fair competition among the policy-making organs in the Yangtze River Delta region. In other words, the three provinces and one municipal government in the Yangtze River Delta can learn from the EU Internal Market Index to build a unified market evaluation index system in the region by means of cluster analysis and statistical measurement; the index system should focus on analyzing the following elements: (1) eliminate the impact of existing local protectionist barriers that hinder the free flow of goods, services, technology, labor, and capital; (2) on network-based industries (such as water supply, Evidence of the competitive landscape of electricity supply; (3) evidence of opening up the local public procurement market to non-local operators; (4) evidence of the integration of technology and services markets; (5) the construction of a comprehensive market for financial services; and (6) the construction of labor market integration. These six types of elements can be quantitatively assessed and comprehensively reflected in the smoothness and agglomeration degree of the free flow of various production factors in various administrative blocks in the Yangtze River Delta region, and there is a positive correlation between this smoothness and agglomeration degree and the performance of relevant local policy-making authorities in implementing the fair competition review system.
Third-party assessment
Under the framework of the unified market evaluation index system of the fair competition review mechanism across administrative divisions, the three provinces and one municipal government of the Yangtze River Delta can accurately and intuitively analyze the trade barrier elimination status between various administrative blocks in the Yangtze River Delta region based on multiple dimensions and sub-indicators, compare the business environment and open pattern of each administrative block horizontally, determine and correct the disability and failure blocks implemented by the fair competition review mechanism in the Yangtze River Delta region, and finally evaluate the implementation performance of the fair competition review of policy-making organs at all levels in the Yangtze River Delta region as a whole and comprehensively. Correspondingly, the three provinces and one municipal government of the Yangtze River Delta and the policy-making organs at all levels under them can also compare the interrelatedness and index differences between themselves and other administrative organs at the level of maintaining the unified market and fair competition mechanism in the Yangtze River Delta region according to the numerical values of the sub-indicators, and can quantitatively determine the degree of docking and integration of the regional market under their jurisdiction with the Regional Market of the Yangtze River Delta and even the national unified market. In addition, it accurately determines and resolves the problems and obstacles existing in the process of integrating the regional market in the Yangtze River Delta and even the national unified market integration.
The "leader" of the Yangtze River Delta, Shanghai's logistics industry
This article is an excerpt from "The Construction Path of The Fair Competition Review Mechanism for Cross-Administrative Divisions: Based on the Perspective of Regional Integration and Development in the Yangtze River Delta", which was originally published in the Economic Law Series, No. 1, 2020.