Per reporter: Tan Zhongkui Per editor: Yang Huan
Image source: Photo.com
In the economically developed southern provinces, it may not be surprising that the "Su Daqiang" type of bulk packaging may not be surprising, but I did not expect that there is also a "bulk household" hidden in the north - Shandong. Unlike Jiangsu, Shandong is "troubled" because the provincial capital is weak, the multi-center is not strong, and the overall driving force is insufficient.
Not long ago, the official website of the Shandong Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision released a circular by the inspection team of the Shandong Provincial Party Committee on the inspection and rectification of Jinan, Qingdao and other cities, making public all kinds of problems existing in these two central cities, which respectively mentioned that "the first degree of the provincial capital is low" and "the leading role of high-quality development is not strong."
On the same day, the Shandong Provincial Development and Reform Commission held a press briefing on the overall layout of the regional development of "a group of two hearts and three circles" to announce that the "14th Five-Year Plan" Integrated Development Plan of the Provincial Capital Economic Circle" "The 14th Five-Year Plan" Integrated Development Plan of the Jiaodong Economic Circle and the "14th Five-Year Plan for the Lunan Economic Circle" were issued and implemented.
On the one hand, it directly refers to the development of the two major central cities; on the other hand, the coordinated development of the region makes the central cities assume greater responsibility. Behind this is inseparable from the pressure of Shandong as the third largest province in the economy - in the first half of this year, Shandong's GDP was 3890.635 billion yuan, an increase of 12.8% year-on-year, and an average growth of 6.1% in two years.
Compared with the whole country, the operating income, import and export and other advantage indicators of the service industry above designated size continue to expand, and the balance of power indicators such as regional GDP, industrial added value above designated size, and total retail sales of social consumer goods have been surpassed.
But at the same time, Shandong is still facing the situation of the pacesetters getting farther and farther away, chasing the soldiers closer, and focusing on the twin stars in the province - Jinan's GDP growth rate in the first half of the year was only 10.5%, lower than the national level; Qingdao's growth rate in the first half of the year was 13.8%, ranking fourth among the 23 trillion cities, but the old rival Ningbo performed equally well, the GDP once again surpassed Qingdao, and expanded the advantage to 10 billion yuan.
How to take the central city and economic circle as the incision to solve the problems of industrial homogenization competition and low efficiency of factor resource integration in the region has become the key to Shandong's next stage of development.
<h2>Primacy</h2>
It is not the first time that Jinan and Qingdao have been named because of the primacy issue. As early as 2018, in the first round of inspection and rectification circular of the 19th Central Committee, seven sub-provincial cities were named across the country, including Jinan and Qingdao in Shandong.
Looking back at the data of the past 5 years, the situation has changed. Jinan's economic primacy has increased from 9.7% to about 14%, and Qingdao's has also increased from 15.2% to 16.9%. Undoubtedly, under the strategy of strengthening the provincial capital, Jinan's development momentum is even more rapid.
Dong Yanling, dean of the Regional Economic Research Institute of Shandong University of Finance and Economics, told Uncle Cheng that Jinan's rapid development has a dual factor of policy and trend.
"On the one hand, under Shandong's strong provincial capital strategy, Jinan has received more policy support and bias, on the other hand, under the dual-cycle pattern, the proportion of internal circulation has risen, and the importance of some transportation node cities and regional central cities is also rising, and the rise of cities such as Wuhan, Zhengzhou, and Hefei confirms this."
However, judging from the half-year data, Jinan has obviously dragged Shandong's economic development in the first half of this year. The data shows that in the first half of 2021, Jinan's GDP was 519.875 billion yuan, an increase of 10.5% year-on-year, and an average growth of 5.5% in two years. During the same period, Shandong's GDP increased by 12.8% year-on-year, with an average growth rate of 6.1% in two years.
Where are jinan's shortcomings? Compared with the cities with the same economic volume as Jinan, Nantong and Hefei have completed the raid on Jinan in the first half of the year by virtue of the rapid growth of secondary industry - in the first half of this year, the added value of Nantong's secondary industry reached 267.9 billion yuan, the added value of Hefei's secondary industry reached 182.007 billion yuan, and the added value of Jinan's secondary industry was only 170.979 billion yuan.
Jinan once proposed that a "strong province" must be a "strong provincial capital", and if the provincial capital is prosperous, the whole province will be prosperous. However, in Shandong Province, which is a major industrial province, Jinan's industrial contribution to the province is still low. In 2020, Jinan's industrial added value was 236.05 billion yuan, accounting for only 10.2% of the province, and the role of nuclear radiation in driving the industry has not been fully highlighted.
The industrial driving role of the central city is not strong, which also makes Shandong in a disadvantageous position in the "card race" of major industries. Among the 25 industrial clusters selected in the last round of the national advanced manufacturing cluster competition, only 2 industrial clusters in Shandong, such as Qingdao's smart home appliances and rail transit equipment, have been significantly behind Jiangsu (6), Guangdong (6), Zhejiang (3) and other advanced provinces and cities in the south.
At the beginning of this year, Jinan issued the "Implementation Opinions of the Jinan Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government of the Communist Party of China on the Implementation of the Strategy of Strengthening Provincial Capitals", proposing that by 2025, the leading role of the industry will be significantly improved, the industrial energy level will leap to the forefront of major cities in the country, the main business income of industries above designated size will exceed 1 trillion yuan, and 1-2 trillion-level industrial clusters will be created, and strategic emerging industries such as quantum technology, aerospace information, integrated circuits, and new energy will develop on a large scale.
<h2>Make a faucet</h2>
Whether from the central city or from the Jiaodong economic circle, Qingdao's role is extraordinary. However, in the eyes of locals, Qingdao is in an embarrassing situation - although it is the first city, under the strategy of strengthening the provincial capital, the policy support is obviously inferior to Jinan; as the leader of the Jiaodong economic circle, but compared with the circle, Yantai, Weifang and other cities are not weak.
"Qingdao's original positioning is the first city in Shandong, and its efforts are to move towards high-quality development, mainly reflected in the gathering of high-end industries, high-end elements and high-end talents." Dong Yanling said that from the perspective of the region, there is no absolute central city in Shandong, and the top four cities in terms of economic volume, three of which are in the Jiaodong economic circle, it is very difficult for Qingdao to absolutely gather resources.
In addition, he also mentioned that the competition between port cities is also very fierce, in recent years, Guangdong, Shanghai, Shenzhen and other southern port cities have risen strongly, and the northern port cities have been greatly impacted, including Qingdao, Dalian, Tianjin and other relatively slow development.
This change can also be found from the foreign trade data of the past five years. In 2020, the total import and export volume of Qingdao, Tianjin and Dalian was 640.7 billion yuan, 734.066 billion yuan and 385.42 billion yuan respectively, and the growth rate in the past five years was only 205.6 billion yuan, 56.47 billion yuan and 45.77 billion yuan, with generally slow growth.
Of course, compared with the external environment, the city's own development concept and playing style are the key. Lei Zhongmin, a professor at Qingdao University of Science and Technology and president of the Qingdao Urban Economics Association, pointed out in an article published in 2019 that Qingdao's development was once confused and confused———
"The lack of clarity in development positioning and development ideas, the homogeneous competition of industries in the region, and the unclear division of functions between cities have led to the long-term failure to form a mechanism for coordinated regional development, and urban development has been marginalized outside the overall pattern of coordinated national regional development, which is not only difficult to achieve close docking with national strategic needs, but also failed to build a strategic platform for effective integration and attraction of development factors at home and abroad."
This can also be seen in the 13th Five-Year Plan for Qingdao and surrounding cities. The key industries developed in Qingdao during the 13th Five-Year Plan period were rail transit equipment, automobiles, ships and offshore engineering, machinery and equipment, home appliances, petrochemicals, rubber, clothing, video, and electronic information, of which only "rail transit equipment, home appliances, and rubber" were misaligned with the other four cities.
The leading role of the regional growth pole of the central city is not only in the growth of economic volume, but also in the height of industrialization. Chen Weimin, executive director of the China Urban Economic Association, once compared and analyzed the key development industries of Qingdao, Hangzhou and Shenzhen with the surrounding cities, and found that the highly overlapping (more than 4 same categories) indicators reached 0.6 in Qingdao, 0.285 and 0.2 in Hangzhou and Shenzhen respectively.
Of course, with the northward shift of Jiaodong Airport, the kinetic energy of industrial upgrading is gradually changing the urban skeleton and industrial structure of this city, and the number of high-tech enterprises has reached 4396, ranking 11th in the country, but there is still a long way to go to be the leader of the Jiaodong economic circle.
<h2>Economic circle</h2>
In fact, jiaodong's plight is a microcosm of Shandong's city. As a strong industrial province, Shandong has the problem of homogeneous competition and insufficient flow of factors in traditional advantageous industries such as textile and garment and papermaking, which restricts regional coordination and high-quality development.
With the introduction of this year's blockbuster plans, the "solution" at the Shandong level has gradually become clear, that is, "dislocation", and some signs can be seen from the changes in the positioning of the two cities.
In the 2020 Shandong Provincial Government Work Report, it is mentioned to "support Jinan and Qingdao to build national central cities", while this year's government work report and the 13th Five-Year Plan have changed their positioning to "support Jinan to build a national central city and Qingdao to build a global ocean center city".
From a larger perspective, after laying the groundwork for the implementation of the new mechanism of regional coordinated development, the "14th Five-Year Plan" Integrated Development Plan for the Provincial Capital Economic Circle, the "14th Five-Year Plan" Integrated Development Plan for the Jiaodong Economic Circle, and the "14th Five-Year Plan for the Lunan Economic Circle" have been officially issued and implemented, which have clear guidelines for the functional positioning, development direction and path of the central city and the three major economic circles.
Dong Yanling believes that building a Shandong Peninsula urban agglomeration with national influence around the central city and economic circle is a strategy that conforms to the logic of regional integration development, and the introduction of these three plans further clarifies the roadmap for development. In the future, Jinan's first place will be higher, and Qingdao can better play a leading role in high-quality development, so that Shandong's chess game can really live.
Let's take a look at how much weight this game weighs.
The provincial capital economic circle is centered on Jinan, covering the six cities of Zibo, Tai'an, Liaocheng, Dezhou, Binzhou and Dongying; the Jiaodong economic circle is centered on Qingdao, covering the four cities of Yantai, Weihai, Weifang and Rizhao; and the Lunan economic circle includes the four cities of Linyi, Zaozhuang, Jining and Heze.
In 2020, the provincial capital, Jiaodong and Lunan economic circles achieved GDP of 2,746.6 billion yuan, 3,111.34 billion yuan and 1,451.59 billion yuan respectively, contributing 38.7%, 41.2% and 20.1% to the province's economic growth, respectively.
In the future, the three major economic circles will highlight the characteristics of "Yellow River, ocean and agriculture", and will also establish a joint meeting system, the provincial capital and Jiaodong economic circle will be led by Jinan and Qingdao respectively, while the Lunan economic circle will be led by the 4 cities in turn, and regular meetings will be held to discuss and study major integration matters.
On the fifth day (August 31) after the issuance and implementation of the 14th Five-Year Plan for the integration of Jiaodong, Qingdao took the lead in convening a working conference on the integrated development of the Jiaodong Economic Circle to discuss the holding of the first Jiaodong Economic Circle Cooperation and Development Conference and the acceleration of the construction of the Laixi Laiyang Integrated Development Pilot Zone.
For the pain points of industrial development such as structural homogenization, imperfect industrial support, and low efficiency of integration of factor resources, the five cities of Jiaodong proposed to benchmark the Yangtze River Delta, select 11 key industrial chains such as rail transit, smart home appliances, and big data in the five cities, and pilot the construction of the Jiaodong Economic Circle Industrial Chain Alliance to promote a new ecology with complementary advantages and efficient division of labor. Leading enterprises, industry associations or colleges and universities in the industry will take turns to serve as the chairman unit of the alliance.
For the Shandong Peninsula, this market-oriented operating mechanism is indeed a new way of playing. Whether the Jiaodong Economic Circle and even the Shandong Peninsula Urban Agglomeration can solve the problem of industrial synergy needs more reforms to store up strength.
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