A high-speed railway linking Chengdu and Chongqing in southwest China Photo: TUCHONG 

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“New quality productive forces,” a new concept arising from China’s economic practices, carries the contemporary “genes” of coordinated regional development. Since it was proposed in September 2023 and stressed in the government work report released in March 2024, the term has received growing attention, with comprehensive arrangements being made from central to local levels. Nonetheless, the arrangements must vary from region to region based on local conditions. Examining the distribution of new quality productive forces from the perspective of coordinated regional development is of great theoretical and practical guiding significance to new development practices. 

Complementation 

To advance coordinated regional development requires not only carrying out related strategies, but also improving the distribution of major productive forces to develop a regional economic layout and a territorial space system that complement each other’s strengths and promote high-quality development. The Central Economic Work Conference, held in December 2023, emphasized again the importance of optimizing the layout of major productive forces within the framework of coordinated regional development, while urging efforts to “strengthen the construction of national strategic hinterland.” The strategic requirement of layout optimization likewise applies to new quality productive forces, particularly under coordinated regional development strategies. 

To accelerate the development of new quality productive forces, on one hand, it is essential to observe the principles of coordinated regional economic development. Since reform and opening up, China has actively encouraged regions which developed first to drive the common and coordinated development of other areas, leveraging the developed areas’ role in regional development with cities as economic growth poles. Therefore, the overall regional economic landscape has been continuously improving. 

New quality productive forces are advanced productive forces with high-tech features that conform to the new development philosophy. The formation of new quality productive forces necessitates high levels of sci-tech innovation, as well as solid foundations of industries and industrial chains. Thus, it is necessary to harness the first-mover advantage of developed regions in fostering new quality productive forces, and pay close attention to cities’ driving effect as economic growth poles. After this, a series of measures for regional coordination are needed to jointly develop other regions, further enriching the connotation of high-quality synergistic development across regions.  

On the other hand, coordinated regional development provides policy guarantees for improving the allocation of new quality productive forces. The report to the 20th CPC National Congress made explicit institutional arrangements for the large-scale development of the western region, the full revitalization of the northeast, the rise of the central region, and the modernization of the eastern region, offering policy guidance for optimizing the distribution of new quality productive forces in the current stage. 

Take the Yangtze River Economic Belt as an example. In February 2024, the State Council approved a national territorial spatial plan for the Yangtze River Economic Belt–Yangtze River basin for the 2021–2035 period, ordering to, through sci-tech innovation, coordinate the development of the economic belt and the basin with the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yellow River basin, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and other areas of major regional development strategies. This will help improve the distribution of new quality productive forces across regions. 

In addition, in November 2023, the China (Xinjiang) Pilot Free Trade Zone was inaugurated as the 22nd pilot free trade zone established by China since 2013 and also the first one situated within the northwestern border areas. 

With this act, China has created a new pattern of all-around opening up from eastern coastal regions to the hinterland and border areas. While refining the layout of opening up regionally, the country will also promote the optimized distribution of new quality productive forces under high-standard opening up. 

Three drivers

In January 2024, during the 11th group study session of the Political Bureau of the 20th CPC Central Committee, General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee Xi Jinping noted that new quality productive forces are driven by revolutionary technological breakthroughs, innovative allocation of production factors, and deep industrial transformation and upgrading. As far as the three drivers of new quality productive forces are concerned, coordinated regional development is able to cultivate development synergy along the dimensions of technology, factors, and industries, to boost the rapid development of new quality productive forces on all fronts. 

First, collaborative regional innovation will accelerate disruptive technological innovations. New quality productive forces are inherently innovative, and revolutionary technological breakthroughs play a pivotal role in their formation. Disruptive technological innovations are highly impactful, complex, and uncertain, requiring enterprises to cross existing technological tracks in order to catalyze a slew of subsequent technological evolution processes. Collaborative innovation among different regions, in addition to the building of a regional innovation community, will facilitate innovators to break limitations in talent, capital, information, technology, and other fields, fueling disruptive technological innovations. 

The C919, the Chinese-built large passenger aircraft that completed its first commercial flight in May 2023, was developed with advanced digital design, manufacturing, and testing technologies. The landmark project was not completed independently by enterprises from one singular region. Instead, it pooled the technological strength of numerous high-tech firms from different regions nationwide, including tens of internationally competitive suppliers of aircraft parts and components. 

Second, integrated development will empower the innovative allocation of production factors. The factor market’s integration is critical to innovating the mechanism for integrated regional development. During the formation of new quality productive forces, traditional production factors like labor, capital, and land should be more efficiently allocated, while new factors such as data, information, and knowledge should be activated to the largest extent. In this regard, regional integration can set the stage for the smooth flow of various advanced, high-quality production factors, removing obstacles hindering the development of new quality productive forces in different respects. 

Specifically, an integrated transportation system will facilitate talent flow across regions, regional equity markets will enrich financing channels, and regional data centers will meet innovators’ computing demands. The Yangtze River delta, exemplifying regional integration, has made substantive progress by following the guidance of the top-level design Outline on the Integrated Regional Development of the Yangtze River Delta, setting a model for higher-standard allocation of production factors in the future. 

Third, regional division of labor and cooperation will spur the clustered development of strategic emerging industries. To develop new quality productive forces, the driving role of strategic emerging industries must be brought into play, which is also the key to to deep industrial transformation and upgrading. In reality, strategic emerging industries are striving to foster integrated clusters to serve China’s goal of building a modern industrial system. Against the backdrop of coordinated regional development, each region can capitalize on their respective industries where they excel to divide labor and cooperate, with a view to build batches of national industrial bases to realize the clustered development of strategic emerging industries. 

At present, four major clusters have basically taken shape in China’s strategic emerging industries: the Yangtze River delta, the Pearl River delta, the Circum-Bohai Sea region, and the upper and middle reaches of the Yangtze River, aligning with the overall geographical layout in regional integration. Characterized by a reasonable distribution of robust industries and distinctive development paths, the four clusters are poised to lay the industrial groundwork for the coordinated distribution of new quality productive forces across diverse fields. 

Suggestions 

Given the role of coordinated regional development, efforts can be made in technological innovation, factor allocation, and industrial upgrade to turbocharge the development of new quality productive forces. On this basis, coordinated regional development strategies can be implemented through the collaborative innovation of urban clusters, the development of the digital economy, and the guidance of industrial clusters. 

First, it is crucial to tap into the potential of collaborative innovation among city clusters and make breakthroughs in key and core technologies by region. Since 2015, the State Council has successively ratified plans for 10 national-level city clusters in China’s east, central and western areas, as well as the northeast, such as the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, the Harbin and Changchun region, and the Chengdu and Chongqing area. 

Collaborative sci-tech innovation is a vital channel for these city clusters, which lie at the strategic core of China’s high-quality development strategy, to play their roles. Under the guidance of coordinated regional development strategies, the layout of the approved national-level city clusters should be regarded as a crucial basis for the effective distribution of new quality productive forces, because collaborative innovation activities among different entities in these city clusters can accumulate regional forces for achieving breakthroughs in key and core technologies. 

Second, the dividend from the development of the digital economy should be shared to unlock the potential of factor market integration, which is conducive to the innovative allocation of production factors. The development of the digital economy will further strengthen the positive role of factor market integration. In the digital economy era, digital technologies, as the most important general-purpose technologies, have penetrated every field of economic development. These technologies can lower the cost of information exchange during the allocation of production factors and improve overall allocation efficiency. Hence, the integration of the factor market can upgrade productive forces through the digital economy, providing a scientific basis for the distribution of new quality productive forces within each region. 

Third, attention should be paid to maximizing regional comparative advantages and steering the sound distribution of new quality productive forces through the development of industrial clusters. China’s vast territory determines that the factor endowment structure varies significantly from region to region, so does their comparative advantage. The distribution of new quality productive forces requires fully utilizing each region’s comparative advantage and considering strategic tasks like boosting China’s strength in manufacturing. 

In November 2022, China unveiled a list of 45 national advanced manufacturing industrial clusters, drawing extensive attention at home and abroad. In terms of regional distribution, there were 30 industrial clusters in the east of the country, 13 in central and western regions, and 2 in the northeast, covering many key fields for building China into a strong country in manufacturing. Thus, the current development of advanced manufacturing industrial clusters will offer strategic guidance for the reasonable distribution of new quality productive forces across both regions and industries. 

Additionally, the above clusters are promising to become world-level advanced manufacturing clusters, lifting China’s status in global industrial and value chains. This will further heighten China’s opening up standards and create a favorable international competition environment for accelerating the development and scientific distribution of new quality productive forces. 

Pan An is an associate professor from the School of Economics at Zhongnan University of Economics and Law. 

Edited by CHEN MIRONG