Deepening the reform----Abolishing the system of life tenure of development zones

On May 30, 2014, the leading group meeting for constructing and developing Gansu’s development zones was held in Lanzhou. At the meeting, it was decided that the current development zones will be removed or merged if the development remains stagnant and shows no improvement after being given a certain time limit to make rectifications. It signifies that the current system of life tenure of development zones will be abolished.

At present, there are 35 state-level and provincial-level development zones in Gansu. Jiayuguan Industrial Park, Tianshui Economic-Technological Development Area and Baiyin High-tech Industrial Development Zone rank in the top 3 in the annual appraisal for 2013. Yuzong Peace Industrial Park in Lanzhou, Xigu New Town Industrial Park and Dongxiang Economic Zone get less than 60 in their appraisals. In order to promote their development, officials from Gansu’s leading group office of development zones suggested that the Xigu New Town Industrial Park should be given a circularized criticism and should make rectifications in its institution setting, plan formulation, infrastructure construction and investment promotion within a certain time limit. If there still was no improvement, it should be removed or merged according to the rules.

From the macro-statistics, it can be seen that the contribution of the development zones keeps growing and the growth is far higher than the surrounding provinces. However, it cannot be ignored that the overall development level is still not very high. The size of the economy, the results and efficiency of development are in the mid-level in the northwest, and the difference will be even more pronounced compared with southwestern provinces. The main reasons for the low ranking are their failing in the implementation of management, delays in planning, vicious competition in investment promotion, and chaotic layout of the buildings.

Abolishing the system of life tenure of development zones and enhancing the comprehensive competitiveness by enhancing evaluation is only one of the important initiatives that Gansu will do to crack the bottleneck of the sluggish development of the development zones. In the future, much more effort will be given to the supervision and management of these development zones.