【Expert Perspective】

Implementing the regional coordinated development strategy is one of the major national strategies in the new era and an important part of implementing the new development concept and building a modern economic system. The Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China proposed to "improve the implementation of the strategic mechanism for regional coordinated development. Build a regional economic layout and land space system with complementary advantages. Improve the institutional and policy system to promote the formation of a new pattern of the development of the western region, make new breakthroughs in the comprehensive revitalization of the Northeast, accelerate the rise of the central region, and accelerate the promotion of modernization in the eastern region." This means that regional coordinated development does not simply require the economic development of each region to reach the same level, but rather promotes relative balance in development based on resource endowments and the development stage.

The vast territory of the western region is the key to achieving coordinated regional development. In recent years, the economic growth rate of the western region has been higher than that of the eastern region for many years, and the relative gap in regional development has continued to narrow. The key to achieving these achievements lies in a scientific understanding of imbalance in economic development. Systematic and holistic thinking should be used to curb isolated and one-sided development, cultivate growth poles and growth belts that drive regional development, and create an orderly and efficient and interconnected urban system and regional relationships. This is the core strategy for promoting regional coordinated development in the new era.

For the western region, future economic development should pay more attention to the role of growth poles, rely on central cities to promote coordinated regional economic development, improve the quality of opening up, and accelerate the construction of a new development pattern of "dual circulation". Prioritizing the development of central cities is an effective way to promote agglomeration. It can give full play to the leadership of agglomeration and radiation driving nature of central cities, promote regional coordinated development by cultivating regional economic growth poles, and ultimately achieve common prosperity.

Improve resource allocation efficiency and release economic dividends. Compared with other cities, central cities are more likely to attract variable factors such as capital and labor, and therefore play an important role in resource allocation. We must give full play to the scale effect of central cities and accelerate the high-quality agglomeration of modern industries. Give full play to the role of agglomeration of economic radiation and driving force, guide the coordinated layout of industries between surrounding cities and central cities, and form a division of labor pattern with regional industrial chains and complementary advantages. Establish a three-dimensional transportation network to significantly reduce the cost of cargo transportation and population mobility. Let central cities play more leverage roles such as economic radiation, resource integration, and information circulation.

Enhance scientific and technological innovation capabilities by promoting the construction of scientific and technological empowerment. Continue to increase investment in science and technology and comprehensively increase the proportion of R&D expenditure in the whole society. Central cities have more comparative advantages in building innovative platforms such as the National Comprehensive Science and Technology Center and National Key Laboratory. They should combine their own endowments and industrial foundations to focus on forward-looking and disruptive key core technologies around modern leading industries such as digital economy, bioeconomy, and new energy and new materials to achieve integrated innovation of "government, industry, academia, research and application". Give full play to the dominant position of enterprises in innovation, cultivate internally and externally to expand the group of technology-based enterprises, increase the number of high-tech enterprises, specialized, specialized, and small and medium-sized enterprises, and make them an important spatial carrier for the new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation.

To promote industrial transformation and upgrading, improve sustainable development capabilities. The western region has always been an important ecological security barrier in my country, adhering to ecological priority and green development, and supporting high-quality development with high-level protection. It is necessary to deepen pollution prevention and control in key areas and key areas, take characteristic and advantageous industries and future industries as the main focus, implement high-end, green and intelligent transformation of traditional industries, and promote the quality and efficiency improvement of traditional industries. Actively expand the application scenarios of the digital economy, increase the recruitment of digital enterprises, and create a new digital industry track such as the research and development and application of artificial intelligence, robots, and the research and development and application of new generation Internet cutting-edge technologies. Accelerate the digital transformation of the service industry, effectively integrate online and offline resources, and promote the extension of productive services and life services to the high-end of the value chain.

Strengthen provincial opening-up capabilities with both large-scale opening-up and large-scale development. To improve the external resource absorption capacity of central cities, western central cities should further play the important role of the node cities of the "Belt and Road" and strengthen the opening-up role of platforms such as international airports and cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zones, and deeply integrate into the high-quality joint construction of the "Belt and Road" and the construction of the Western Land-Sea New Channel. Actively serve major national and regional strategies and carry out cross-provincial cooperation. Further promote the cooperation capabilities and international influence of the Chengdu-Chongqing Twin Cities Economic Circle, comprehensively optimize the Guanzhong Plain urban agglomeration, and cultivate the Lanxi urban agglomeration. In the future, we should pay more attention to the important role of central cities in regional development and use them as strategic support to promote high-quality regional economic development.

(Author: Si Lijuan, professor at the School of Economics of Lanzhou University and dean of the Institute of County Economic Development of Lanzhou University)