The industrial development of Beibu gulf economic zone of Guangxi: Issues and measures

Abstract

China is the ASEAN’s largest trading partner and ASEAN is China’s third largest trading partner. The leading role of BGEZ makes the coastal areas of Guangxi an important strategic district for China’s western development and international regional economic cooperation. However, due to geopolitical factors and the desire for benefits of offshore energy resources, certain problems still exist between China andASEANcountries. There are four main issues regarding the BGEZ’s development: overemphasis on industry policies rather than market mechanism, overemphasis on introducing major projects rather than intensive utilizing resources and environmental protection, overemphasis on expansion of industrial scale rather than optimizing industrial structure and layout, and overemphasis on preferential policies rather than factor endowment promotion. The following measures should be taken in order to further improve the BGEZ: (1) to develop industrial clusters which established comparative advantages, (2) to develop leading industries that oriented by domestic demand, and (3) to development environmentally friendly industries as well as services in the production process.