Research on Stimulating the County-wide Economic Vitality of Jingzhou City

Wenqian XIE

College of Management and Economics, Yangtze University, Jingzhou 434023, China

Abstract Based on the actual situation of Jingzhou City in Hubei Province, this article deeply explores the advantages in stimulating the vitality of the county-wide economy, the opportunities in development, the shortcomings, and the selection of development paths, aiming to further promote the county-wide economy of Jingzhou City. The transition from unbalanced and inadequate development to high-quality development has promoted the overall vitality and leapfrog development of the county-wide economy of Jingzhou City.

Key words County-wide economy, Path selection, Vitality, Jingzhou City

1 Introduction

A county is the basic unit in China to measure the level of economic development, and it plays an important role in government decision-making and macro-control. The county-wide economy has always been an important part of China’s economy. The 19National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed to implement the strategy of rural revitalization, indicating that the county-wide economic development has risen to the height of the national strategy. Since the reform and opening up, the evolution of the county-wide economy in Jingzhou City has shown that the county-wide economy has different models at different stages. The vitality shown by these models spirally promotes the development of the county-wide economy. In the year of decisive victory to build a moderately prosperous society in an all-round way, decisive battle against poverty, and the end of the 13Five-Year Plan, conducting research of stimulating the vitality of the county-wide economy in Jingzhou is of great significance for promoting the improvement and leapfrog development of the city’s county-wide economy.

2 Advantages of Jingzhou City in stimulating the vitality of the county-wide economy

The strategic layout of "one core, two belts and three districts" positions Jingzhou as an important node city in the "Yangtze River Green Economy and Innovation Driven Development Belt" and a core city in the "Jianghan Plain Revitalization and Development Demonstration Zone". Specifically, Jingzhou has four main advantages:

2.1 Political advantage

In recent years, Jingzhou has won 6 national "golden signboards", and it is the only in Hubei Province to be included in the Yangtze River Economic Belt, the City Group in the Middle Reaches of the Yangtze River, the Dongting Lake Ecological Economic Zone,and the National Demonstration Zone for Undertaking Industrial Transfer.

2.2 Locational advantage

The entire Jingzhou belongs to the radiation category of the Yangtze River Economic Belt, located at the core intersection of the Yangtze River Economic Belt and the Erguang axis, and is the core area of the national-level industrial transfer demonstration zone. The Menghua Railway (also called Haoji Railway, between Inner Mongolia and Jiangxi) has formed a "cross" between Jingzhou and the Yangtze River, which has turned Jingzhou into an important logistics node for water and land transport in the central region, which has further accelerated the urbanization of Jingzhou.

2.3 Industrial advantage

Jingzhou has three functional zones, namely, the national-level Jingzhou Development Zone, Jinan Ecological and Cultural Tourism Zone, and Jingzhou High-tech Zone, forming six pillar industries and owning 11 provincial-level key industrial clusters. At the same time, the management system of "one city, three districts" and "one district with multiple parks" is implemented to guide the county-wide economy to attract investment and develop innovatively.

2.4 Resource advantage

Jingzhou is the core area of advantageous agricultural resources in Hubei Province and an important national comprehensive production base for agricultural products. Jingzhou is the ancient capital of the Chu Kingdom and a famous city in the Three Kingdoms. Various cultures complement each other. Jingzhou is rich in human resources, with more than 300 scientific research institutes, 9 colleges and universities, and more than 120 000 college students. 39 academician expert workstations and 15 post-doctoral research mobile stations have been built.

These advantages are not only the foundation for the vitality of the county-wide economy in Jingzhou, but also the foundation for realizing the high-quality development of the county-wide economy in Jingzhou in the new era.

3 Shortcomings of the county-wide economy in Jingzhou and their causes

The key to stimulating the vitality of the county-wide economy lies in finding the correct positioning of the county, exploring the shortcomings in the development of the county, and proposing countermeasures against the shortcomings, so as to achieve the purpose of better stimulating the economic vitality of the county. Each of the counties (cities, districts) in Jingzhou has many advantages in terms of policies, location, industry, and resources, but there are also some restrictive factors in terms of economic structure and industrial development. There are many reasons for these restrictive factors.

3.1 Current shortcomings of the county-wide economy in Jingzhou

3.1.1

The county’s industry level is not high, and agriculture accounts for too much. With the development of modern agriculture, new industries, and modern service industries, the county-wide economy in Jingzhou has continued to innovate in management models and development models, making it vigorous and building a group of smart, innovative, ecological and efficient. The modern park has created a good development environment for the transformation and upgrading of the county-wide economy and industry. At the same time, as the mobility of production factors increases, especially the balance of key production factors flowing to county economies, the functions of industrial parks in counties (cities, districts) have gradually improved. Modern agriculture, strategic emerging industries, and high-end manufacturing Emerging industries and modern service industry have begun to have the development conditions for cultivation and growth in county industrial parks. However, the natural environment and geographical area of Jingzhou City make the current industrial level of the county-wide economy in Jingzhou not very high.

3.1.2

County economic development is unbalanced and the differences are large. The comparative advantage theory of economics believes that no matter what level of development a region is at, even if it is at a disadvantage in general, it can find relative advantages in many aspects, and relying on these advantages, it can find the foundation for growth in the regional division of labor system. The counties (cities, districts) of Jingzhou have their own resource advantages and location advantages, and implement the national guidelines and policies based on actual conditions, open up the channel for the transformation of comparative advantages into economic advantages, produce scale effects and brand effects, and more effectively promote the characteristic development of each county (city, district). But this is also the root cause of the uneven economic development of counties (cities, districts) in Jingzhou.

3.1.3

The conversion of new and old driving force is slow, and the development of the new economy is lagging behind. At present, under the background of the new economic normal, consumption and service industries replace investment and exports as the main driving force for economic growth. The contribution and importance of the new economy to economic growth is increasing. The power supporting economic growth is to transform the old and the new momentum. That is, through new technological revolutions and industrial reforms, a new driving force for economic and social development is formed, and new technologies, new industries, new formats, new models,

etc.

are used to transform the traditional resource- and government-oriented economic development model.

As the central city on the Jianghan Plain, Jingzhou is a major grain-producing city in the country and one of the important cities to ensure national food security. Its grain yield occupies the second place in Hubei Province, second only to Xiangyang. But grain production is only one aspect. Jingzhou is also a big aquatic product city. The top two crayfish productions are located in Jingzhou. It can be seen that traditional agriculture, the primary industry, still accounts for a large proportion, and while gradually shifting to high-quality development, traditional industries can no longer support economic development, and it is urgent to realize the conversion of new and old driving force, from factor-driven to technology-based innovation.

3.2 Reasons for shortcomings

3.2.1

Not enough to dig into their own advantages. The logical starting point for the rise of the county-wide economy is to base itself on local reality and make full use of its own resource endowments and location conditions. It is precisely the need to develop resource advantages into location advantages, which in turn drive the cultivation of a number of pillar industries. At present, Jingzhou still relies largely on natural resources, land, labor and other primary resources, with low industrial level, high energy consumption, low brand influence, and has not made good use of the advantages of traditional industries.

3.2.2

Lack of industrial cluster development and low industrial agglomeration. Industrial clusters are an important way to promote local regional economic growth and can improve regional production efficiency. When an industrial cluster is formed, it will be possible to enhance the competitiveness of the entire region through a variety of ways, such as reducing costs, stimulating innovation, improving efficiency, and intensifying competition, and finally form a cluster of competitiveness. This new competitiveness cannot be possessed by non-cluster and non-cluster enterprises. At present, there are few industrial clusters in Jingzhou, and the more well-known petrochemical industry clusters are composed of petroleum machinery in Jingzhou District and petrochemical equipment manufacturing in Honghu Fuchang. However, the geographical location of this industrial cluster is relatively scattered. The low degree of industrial agglomeration also has a greater impact on the development of enterprises and projects that attract investment. Each project and enterprise has become a relatively independent individual without forming a cluster, and thus has no core competitiveness in the market.

3.2.3

The tightening of the dual constraints of environment and cost makes the existing development model unsustainable, and at the same time increases the development risk of county-wide economy. At this stage, the concept of "green mountains and clear water equal to mountains of gold and silver" proposed by general secretary Xi Jinping has become increasingly popular, requiring the development of the county-wide economy to not only strengthen ecological protection, but also to continuously promote economic transformation under the constraints of the ecological environment. Because of this, the county economic development is facing severe challenges. At the same time, with the arrival of the Lewis turning point, the long-term dependence on cheap labor for economic growth has gone forever. The substantial increase in the prices of production factors such as land, raw materials, and labor has broken the long-term dependence of the county-wide economy on low factor costs and low social welfare costs.

4 Development recommendations of Jingzhou to stimulate the vitality of county-wide economy

Through the above analysis, we came up with the following recommendations for stimulating the vitality of the county-wide economy in Jingzhou City.

4.1 Developing characteristic and advantageous industries, and exploring ways of spillover expansion

It is recommended to construct industrial clusters of agricultural products processing industry and build new growth points. The county-wide economy of Jingzhou should realize regional layout, professional operation, and enterprise management centering on characteristic industries, highlight the development of grain, livestock and poultry product processing, build a leading enterprise processing base, and realize the integration of production, supply and marketing with agriculture, industry, and commerce, science, industry and trade. This will be conducive to the formation of external economies such as production integration and rational use of resources, and will help promote the increase and accumulation of the county’s total economic scale, and will help build the county’s economic growth points and growth poles.

4.2 Formulating support and incentive policies to drive development with innovation

Innovation is the current source and new driving force to promote economic development, and it is an indispensable part of county economic development. The governments of counties (cities, districts) should actively implement financial support and policy support, including rewards and support for companies with foreign trade and scientific research achievements, and actively prepare supporting funds for high-tech training of employees. Besides, it is recommended to broaden the scope of credit guarantees and increase financial support. In response to the difficulty of financing for small and medium-sized enterprises, implement the policy of "government support, banks support, and enterprises support", and at the same time actively coordinate financial institutions in Jing, promote bank-enterprise cooperation, and expand corporate financing channels.

4.3 Making overall planning the coordinated development of urban and rural areas, and actively constructing county-level characteristic development space

All counties (cities, districts) in Jingzhou should take the new urbanization as a new growth pole for planning and construction, comprehensively plan the coordinated development of urban and rural areas in terms of infrastructure construction, public services, and industrial carriers, and smooth the flow of urban and rural elements. In addition, it is recommended to coordinate the layout and construction of urban and rural infrastructure, promote the extension of urban infrastructure to the countryside, and improve the long-term mechanism of rural infrastructure investment. Improve the level of basic public services in counties, strengthen the construction of new industrial carriers, attach importance to the leading role of industrial development in new urbanization, and enhance the supporting role of industries in urban development.

4.4 Continuing to optimize the business environment and fully stimulate the vitality of county market entities

All counties (cities, districts) in Jingzhou must earnestly implement the

Implementation

Plan

for

Jingzhou

to

Make

Greater

Efforts

to

Optimize

the

Business

Environment

and

Stimulate

Market

Vitality

, and respond to the standards of Shanghai, Shenzhen and other domestic first-class business environments and the World Bank’s business environment evaluation standards. Besides, it is recommended to take extra-conventional measures and actions, and deeply implement a batch of leading measures to optimize the business environment in Hubei Province, to make the market environment more relaxed and convenient, the government environment more standardized and efficient, and the rule of law environment more fair and complete, so as to be a good "shop second" for the development of enterprises. Further, it is recommended to achieve "responsible for calls, without disturbance" to resolve the "post-epidemic syndrome", fight for the livelihood defense and economic development of the rejuvenation after the epidemic, so that the county-wide economy will be rejuvenated and vigorous.

4.5 Deepening the implementation of rural revitalization, accelerating the modernization of agriculture and rural areas, and providing a guarantee for the vitality of the county-wide economy

It is recommended to take the in-depth implementation of the rural revitalization strategy as the starting point, promote capital, technology and talents to enter the countryside, promote the integrated development of rural primary, secondary

and tertiary industries, strengthen the support of rural revitalization talents, build ecologically livable and beautiful rural areas, and accelerate the modernization of agriculture and rural areas. Besides, it is recommended to actively cultivate new industries and business forms in rural areas, and explore new carriers and new models for the integration and development of rural industries. Strengthen the support of rural revitalization talents, innovate training methods, increase the cultivation of professional and technical talents, and explore the cooperation and exchange mechanism of talent training between urban and rural areas, regions, and schools.