Competitiveness evaluation of high-quality manufacturing development in the Yangtze River Economic Belt

Abstract

This paper aims to construct the evaluation index system and model for the competitiveness of high-quality manufacturing development in China, and put forward pertinent suggestions. To this end, the evaluation index system was designed in reference to the input-process-output model of the systems theory; the entropy method was improved through analytic hierarchy process (AHP), and then combined with the technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) into the improved entropy TOPSIS model. On this basis, the competitiveness of the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) in high-quality manufacturing development (HQMD) was evaluated with the panel data of 2013-2018, in terms of overall competitiveness, spatial and temporal trends, industrial landscape, and national ranking. The results show that: The overall HQMD competitiveness improved steadily, under the strong boost from two factors and slight constraint from two factors. In terms of space, the HQMD competitiveness was stronger in the east, with widening regional gaps; in terms of time, the HQMD competitiveness was improving across the board, especially in the central region. Five provinces maintain steady growth of HQMD competitiveness, and six provinces witnessed fluctuating growth. In the final manufacturing landscape, there were one leader, two subleaders, three supporters, and five followers. The YREB is the demonstration zone of China's HQMD, with 80% of its provinces falling in medium and high levels. Finally, several suggestions were presented to improve the HQMD competitiveness in the YREB. The research findings provide a good reference for policymakers to promote manufacturing and pursue sustainable development.