Major economic provinces should really take the lead! What signal has been released?

Text: Kaifeng

The economic province was once again entrusted with an important task.

With great power comes great responsibility.

An important meeting held a few days ago pointed out that to coordinate the resolution of local debt risks and stable development, major economic provinces should really take the lead and make greater contributions to stabilizing the national economy.

This means that major economic provinces should be at the forefront of "fighting for the economy" and shoulder the important task of stabilizing growth, foreign trade, employment, and especially finance.

01

Which provinces are considered to be economically powerhouses?

There is no uniform standard for major economic provinces, but the clues can be seen from the provincial capitals participating in previous important meetings.

First, a forum of five provinces and municipalities along the southeast coast held in July last year pointed out that the five provinces and municipalities in the southeast should continue to play the role of the main pillar of national development and economic stability, and play the main role of guaranteeing the country's financial resources.

At that time, the five southeastern provinces attending the meeting were Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian and Shanghai.

These provinces are the main sources of fiscal transfers, accounting for one-third of the country's economy, generating more than 40% of fiscal revenue and contributing nearly 80% of net fiscal contributions.

The other is a symposium of the main responsible persons of major economic provinces held in August last year, which proposed that major economic provinces should bravely take the lead and play a key supporting role in stabilizing the economy.

At that time, a total of six provinces attended the meeting: Guangdong, Jiangsu, Shandong, Zhejiang, Henan, and Sichuan.

This is the province with the highest GDP and the largest population, accounting for 45% of the country's total economic output and about 40% of the country's total population, which can be called the "pillar" of the country's economic development.

The meeting also specifically named four coastal provinces -- Guangdong, Jiangsu, Shandong, and Zhejiang -- to complete the task of handing over their finances, which shows the importance of these major economic provinces.

In addition, some media classify the top 10 GDP provinces as among the major economic provinces, and some institutions include Beijing and Shanghai, which includes Hubei, Hunan, Anhui, Hebei, Beijing, Shanghai and other provinces.

On the whole, the economic provinces are first and foremost "large", and the total GDP is obviously the first.

Looking at the economic volume alone, the top ten economic provinces and even the provinces with a GDP of 4 trillion yuan can be classified into this list, and Guangdong, Jiangsu, Shandong, Zhejiang, Sichuan, and Henan are the first echelon worthy of the name.

However, in order to really provoke the main beam, the economic volume alone is obviously not enough.

A large province must be based on the premise of strong comprehensive strength, and it is inseparable from core indicators such as industrial strength, foreign trade strength, scientific and technological innovation strength, comprehensive financial strength, especially the contribution of net financial contributions.

If we take into account the comprehensive indicators such as economy and financial resources, there are seven main economic provinces in the strict sense: Guangdong, Jiangsu, Shandong, Zhejiang, Fujian, Shanghai, and Beijing.

These provinces are all located in the east, including five provinces on the southeast coast and Shandong and Beijing provinces and cities in the north.

02

Why are large economic provinces so important?

As the second largest country in the world economy, some provinces on the mainland are placed in the world economic forest, which is enough to compete with many other countries.

From the perspective of total GDP alone, the total economic output of the six major economic provinces in the mainland will reach 53.5 trillion yuan in 2022, and it is expected to jump to more than 56 trillion yuan in 2023, accounting for more than 44% of the national economy.

If the scope of major economic provinces is expanded to the top 10 provinces, the total economic output will reach 73.5 trillion yuan in 2022, and it is expected to further increase to more than 770,000 in 2023, accounting for more than 60% of the country.

Taking a step back, if we only look at the seven major economic provinces that contributed net fiscal contributions, namely Guangdong, Jiangsu, Shandong, Zhejiang, Fujian, Shanghai, and Beijing, the total economic output reached 55.65 trillion yuan last year, and is expected to climb to more than 58 trillion yuan this year, accounting for about 46 percent of the country's total.

The financial contribution of these provinces is unparalleled compared to the total economy.

According to the data, in 2021, only 8 of the 31 provinces in the mainland made a net contribution to the national finance, with five eastern provinces including Guangdong, Beijing, Shanghai and Zhejiang as the main contributors, and Shandong, Tianjin and Fujian as secondary contributors.

Thanks to the contribution of the coastal provinces, the mainland has abundant financial resources to make transfer payments to achieve balanced development in different regions.

According to the data of the Ministry of Finance, in 2023, the scale of transfer payments from the central government to local governments will reach 10.06 trillion yuan, of which Sichuan, Henan, Yunnan, Heilongjiang and other provinces will receive a total of more than 400 billion yuan, ranking among the top in the country for many consecutive years.

Of course, the population size of different provinces is different, and in terms of per capita transfer payments, Tibet, Qinghai, Ningxia, Gansu, Jilin, Heilongjiang and other provinces are the biggest beneficiaries with more than 10,000 yuan.

Although the eastern economic provinces also received a certain amount of transfer payments, they eventually became net contributors to fiscal transfers because of the larger amount they paid.

It is not difficult to see that whether the economy and tax revenue of the coastal provinces with strong economies can maintain stable growth is not only related to the sustainability of their own fiscal expenditures, but also affects almost all provinces, including the central and western regions and the northeast.

03

The economic provinces have the importance of the economic provinces, and other provinces also have the special features of other provinces.

The advantage of a big country lies in the fact that the whole country plays a game of chess.

China has not only a large economic province, but also a large energy province, and even a large agricultural province.

The eastern economic provinces should be the economic pillars, the northwest provinces should take the role of energy security, and the northeast and central provinces should also be the pillars of food security.

From the perspective of energy and electricity, coal in Shanxi, Inner Mongolia and Shaanxi, and hydropower in Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan have strongly supported the development of the eastern region.

From the perspective of grain, the total grain output of the seven northern provinces, including Heilongjiang, Henan, Shandong, Inner Mongolia, Jilin, Liaoning, and Hebei, accounts for half of the country.

Not only that, none of the five provinces in the country that have a net grain transfer are in the eastern region. Henan, Heilongjiang, Inner Mongolia and Jilin are all in the north, while there is only one seat in Anhui in the south.

Except for Anhui, which is located in the south, the others are in the north, and the northeast occupies two seats, Heilongjiang is the largest province in the country's grain production, and Henan in the central part is the largest wheat production province.

The agricultural provinces may not be as developed as the industrial provinces, but their importance cannot be ignored. The good news is that this year's important meeting proposed to "explore the establishment of an inter-provincial horizontal interest compensation mechanism for grain production and marketing areas", which is undoubtedly good news for Henan, Heilongjiang and other provinces.

Therefore, we should not only see the contribution of the eastern economic provinces, but also ignore the importance of the western and northern provinces to the economic fundamentals.

In the face of the great changes in the world unseen in a century, it is the first thing to work together between the East and the West, the North and the South, and jointly maintain energy security, food security and industrial security.