Why has the YRD been overtaken by the PRD in terms of demographic attractiveness? Why is the Yangtze River Delta, with its strong private economic foundation and larger base of listed companies, inferior to the Pearl River Delta in terms of generating big brands? In the author's view, the Yangtze River Delta compared to the Pearl River Delta, at least in the following five areas of disparity.
1, the industrial structure of the traditional, emerging industries accounted for a relatively low
Recently, changes in the external environment once again pushed the Pearl River Delta to the tip of the wind. But this also once again verifies the fact that in the field of communications, electronics and other high-end manufacturing, China certainly still has a lot of shortcomings in technology, and the position in the value chain is not absolutely advantageous, but the Pearl River Delta region, especially in Shenzhen in the integrity of the production chain, in the global arena have great uniqueness.
Most of the companies listed on Hong Kong and US stock exchanges are enterprises with technical barriers to listing in China, thus the industry distribution of A-share listed companies in the region is more reflective of the overall level of development of a region's manufacturing industry and general services. We may as well analyze the A-share listed companies in Guangdong's nine municipalities and the Yangtze River Delta, which will verify one fact - -The economic structure of the Yangtze River Delta is heavier and more traditional than that of the Pearl River Delta. This is in fact an important reason why in recent years Shenzhen has rapidly widened the gap with the southern Jiangsu province, represented by Suzhou, electronics, communications and other emerging industries in the Pearl River Delta accounted for a relatively high output value, while the southern Jiangsu province is more reliant on traditional heavy industry and chemical industry.
We have compiled statistics on A-share listed companies in nine cities in the Yangtze River Delta and Guangdong. According to the classification criteria of Flush, the industry distribution of A-share listed companies in the Yangtze River Delta is as follows:
We see that the two industries of machinery and chemical industry are in the top two, accounting for 20% and 11% respectively, followed by information services and transportation equipment. Among the 73 listed companies in this type of transportation equipment, there are 59 companies producing auto parts. Electronics, information equipment (including communications equipment), home appliances and other industries that are strong in Guangdong's nine cities have little presence in the Yangtze River Delta.
The above chart shows the industry distribution of listed companies in Guangdong's nine cities. Electronics, which ranks first, is only sixth in the Yangtze River Delta; machinery, which ranks second, is first in the Yangtze River Delta; the third is the same as the Yangtze River Delta, which is information services (including the Internet, software, and media); and the fourth is information equipment, which is ranked 14th in the Yangtze River Delta.
This contrast becomes clearer when we look at the data on the share of A-share listed companies in the nine Guangdong cities and the Yangtze River Delta by industry.
The right-most column shows the ratio of Guangdong's share to that of the Yangtze River Delta. The higher the ratio, the more pronounced Guangdong's advantage over the Yangtze River Delta in this industry. The lower the ratio, the lower the industrial scale and head enterprises of Guangdong cities in this industry compared with the Yangtze River Delta.
In terms of electronics and information equipment, Guangdong's nine cities accounted for almost three times as much as the Yangtze River Delta. With less than 60% of A-share listed companies in the Yangtze River Delta, the absolute number of listed companies in the electronics and information equipment segments in Guangdong and Kowloon are higher than those in the Yangtze River Delta. (Electronics industry, 93 in GD-9 and 60 in YRD; information equipment, 44 in GD-9 and 29 in YRD). Light industry and home appliances are also industries in which GD-9 has a clear advantage, which is in line with the public's perception and cognizance that the PRD's branding effect is much stronger than that of the YRD in terms of producing direct-to-consumer C-suite products.
Then look at the Yangtze River Delta clearly have an advantage, the first and foremost is machinery, chemicals and auto parts, these three industries accounted for 35% of the total number of listed companies in the Yangtze River Delta A-share listed companies, while in the nine cities in Guangdong, this accounted for less than 20%. In addition to chemicals, favored industries such as metallurgy and military industry also lead the Yangtze River Delta. None of the listed companies in Guangdong's nine cities are in steel or extractive industries, while there are still 13 listed companies in the Yangtze River Delta in these two categories.
We can draw an obvious conclusion that compared with the YRD, the manufacturing industry in the PRD is more emerging and 2C, with a large number of products such as home appliances and digital products directly facing consumers, while the manufacturing industry in the YRD is relatively traditional and more 2B, with products such as machinery and chemicals more oriented to the upstream of the supply chain.
But it should be recognized that producing more intermediate goods or final products is not the main criterion for determining the level of an industry. But in terms of the YRD and the PRD alone, it's an indisputable fact that the electronics, communications and home appliance industries in the PRD are generally more technologically advanced and invest more in research and development than the more traditionally weighted industries, such as metallurgy and chemicals, in which the YRD has an advantage.
The Yangtze River Delta has always been known for its active private economy, especially in Zhejiang. But it can not be denied that, because of a variety of objective reasons for the limitations of China's private sector technology investment is limited overall, industrial upgrading is not destined to be a smooth road.
Shenzhen Huaqiangbei, more than a decade ago to cottage known. And now Shenzhen's electronics industry capacity, has been to the world can not be underestimated degree, which and Shenzhen and the entire Pearl River Delta region of the global market integration has a lot to do. Without the investment of a large number of foreign-funded enterprises, Hong Kong-funded enterprises and Taiwan-funded enterprises in Shenzhen and the Pearl River Delta, it would not have been possible for the industrial capacity of the Pearl River Delta to be rapidly upgraded within a short period of time. It is on the basis of this rapidly rising industrial capacity that the PRD has in turn become the region with the lowest cost and highest efficiency for new industries such as electronics and telecommunications, and the strong industrial capacity and industrial infrastructure have fed the rise of China's indigenous new industries. Therefore, the prosperity of Shenzhen's private high-tech industries is inseparable from the massive influx of foreign capital, including capital from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan.
However, the situation in the Yangtze River Delta is completely different. Foreign capital into the Yangtze River Delta bridgehead is Shanghai, the main "buyer" type of trade and service industry, which makes the local Shanghai, foreign capital and Chinese capital in the scramble for talent shows the effect of the two sides, but in the industry chain is the lack of Shenzhen as the positive pulling force. Southern Jiangsu Province in the attraction of investment is more prominent, in the new industrial park, Kunshan, Taiwan-funded enterprises industry chain, are examples. But suzhou and shenzhen compared, did not develop and processing trade industry highly compatible with the local electronic industry chain. Zhejiang, although the state-owned and foreign-funded forces are relatively weak, so the local private economy seems to be more prosperous. But most of the local private enterprises in Zhejiang, in the industrial upgrading of the will are not high.
The threshold for private companies to invest more in technology is not low. Most of China's local private enterprises started in traditional industries, the initial technical content is not high, such as to the transition to higher-end areas, the investment is huge. They are not centuries-old companies with technological advantages that can make money from patent sales, and in China's financing environment, it is difficult to get a real source of capital to support long-term innovation and development, coupled with the overall cost of doing business and fierce competition in the market, profits are already thin, and it is even more unlikely that large-scale R & D investment (R & D investment has a high degree of uncertainty), and is often trapped in the path of dependence on the second-rate industry. For most private enterprises in the transmission industry, it is extremely difficult to transform into a truly technology-driven enterprise. The industry itself and its competitive landscape, the company's own governance structure, talent strategy and human resource reserves, etc., have all determined that such enterprises would rather diversify and expand in the field of real estate and finance while maintaining their traditional main business rather than expanding into high-tech aspects. This is the predicament behind the relative prosperity of the private economy in the Yangtze River Delta, which is also the disadvantage of the Yangtze River Delta relative to the Pearl River Delta.
2, regional openness is weaker than the Pearl River Delta
If you want to discuss China's business environment is the best, the private economy is the most developed region where? The Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta can be a battle, especially in Zhejiang, certainly will not lose to the Pearl River Delta.
But to discuss which region in China is the most open and welcoming to outsiders? The answer is almost indisputable: the Pearl River Delta.
A few days ago, Guangzhou finally lifted the restriction on non-fresh graduates with a bachelor's degree or above to settle in the city. This means that graduates with bachelor's degree or above can already move freely in all cities in the country except Beijing and Shanghai. However, Shanghai, the city with the strongest economy, the most prominent hub status and the most job opportunities in the Yangtze River Delta region, is still unlikely to completely liberalize household registration.
Shanghai University of Finance and Economics refurbished the old school gate before its centennial celebration
There has been a discrepancy in Shanghai's settlement policy for graduates of local and non-local universities. Although in recent years hit the Peking University and Tsinghua University undergraduate graduates can be unconditional settlement patch, but the scale of graduates of the two schools after all is limited, still can not change the local college students and foreign college students in the settlement policy on the overall imbalance. Compared to Beijing, Shanghai colleges and universities, the proportion of local students is already high, the local college graduates of tilted policy, of course, so that graduates of Shanghai colleges and universities in Shanghai to settle more easily, but it affects the willingness of graduates of foreign colleges and universities to come to Shanghai. Tilted policies, emotional inertia, and even the natural difference in alumni network effects in Shanghai's employment units are all unfriendly factors to foreign college graduates. Beijing, Wuhan and other colleges and universities do not stay in the local college students, the largest flow are Shenzhen and Guangzhou, rather than Shanghai, which will undoubtedly also affect the balance of long-term competition between the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta.
More importantly, under the policy tilt, Shanghai employers in the emotional "Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai graduates first" huge inertia, in fact, the Yangtze River Delta region has a spillover effect. Compared with Beijing and Guangdong, the Yangtze River Delta employers of the region's colleges and universities is the highest degree of favor. While there are certainly some locals who recognize such an arrangement, this is obviously highly detrimental to the YRD's ability to broaden its appeal nationwide and remain competitive in the long term.
In contrast, the Pearl River Delta has always been highly coveted by foreign talents, even though its local higher education resources are far inferior to those of the Yangtze River Delta. The most typical example is Wuhan, which now has 1.2 million college students, and the main flow direction of these college students after graduation is the Pearl River Delta. Although Shenzhen has no local 985 universities, it is the top three employment destinations for graduates of most 985 universities in China.
3, highly dependent on a single center in Shanghai lack of multi-center
Talking about openness, it is impossible not to mention the differences between the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta city systems. Observing the net population inflow of major cities in the Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta in 2018, the Yangtze River Delta is indeed not optimistic.
Suzhou, the second most populous and economically important city in the YRD. added only 37,700 permanent residents in 2018, and Wuxi was even worse, with only 21,500. The combined total of the 15 cities in the Yangtze River Delta that added 901,500 new permanent residents in 2018 was 3,000 less than the cities of Shenzhen and Guangzhou combined.
The city's economy is a competition between quality and quantity. In terms of comparison between Guangzhou and Hangzhou, Guangzhou certainly has a less developed private economy than Hangzhou, the number of listed companies is not as high as Hangzhou, and there is a lack of top local brands and other disadvantages, but Guangzhou's position as a regional gateway still gives it an economic and population volume far greater than Hangzhou's, and this quantitative advantage makes it possible to absorb the foreign population to a greater extent.
The most obvious difference between the Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta in terms of urban hierarchy is that the Pearl River Delta is multi-center. Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Hong Kong, three cities with similar economic volumes, each have great influence in different areas such as trade and logistics, technology and finance across the country and even in the Asia-Pacific region. However, there is only one gateway city in the YRD, which is Shanghai. Hangzhou, Nanjing, Suzhou and Shanghai are completely subordinate in terms of city functions and status. Although Hangzhou has the Internet and the local private economy two relative to Shanghai's long board, but the overall does not have the gateway function, finance, shipping, transportation, logistics, high-end professional services and other areas of function is still not perfect, only Shanghai can meet its needs.
I have been in the "rise of Hangzhou, in fact, Shanghai's greatest fortune" in the finger, Shanghai and Hangzhou is different from Guangzhou, Shenzhen, the two places are completely only complementary, no competition, so the rise of Hangzhou on the Shanghai has a hundred benefits and no harm, but this is only one aspect of the problem. Hangzhou and Shanghai lack of competition between the fundamental reason, or Shanghai's development base and resource conditions are far better than Hangzhou, and the latter is not in an order of magnitude, so Hangzhou is not possible to form a holistic challenge to Shanghai. From a larger perspective, the lack of a second gateway city and regional center outside of Shanghai is a real problem to be solved in the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta.
Guangzhou and Shenzhen certainly have a certain competitive relationship, but the rise of Shenzhen's relative position and the decline of Guangzhou's relative position is not the result of competition between Guangzhou and Shenzhen, but the result of industrial changes. (See "Guangdong did not apologize to Guangzhou, Guangzhou did not do anything wrong") without Shenzhen in recent years, more reliance on traditional state-owned enterprises, automobile processing and manufacturing, traditional foreign-funded FMCG and other industries in Guangzhou, its relative position will also decline (many of the traditional advantages of Guangzhou industries such as FMCG, culture, media, the main direction of the main outward movement itself is also Shanghai, Beijing, rather than Shenzhen), in a way. The rapid growth of Shenzhen's emerging industries has instead strengthened the economic foundation of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and Tencent's and other Shenzhen enterprises' investment in Guangzhou is a kind of feedback to Guangzhou. On the surface there is indeed some competition between Guangzhou and Shenzhen in terms of transportation infrastructure and other aspects, but overall Shenzhen's development has clearly had a greater positive effect on Guangzhou.
For Shanghai to be good, it needs to have a Shenzhen to Guangzhou-style presence next to it. Today's Hangzhou, Nanjing, and Suzhou are all completely incomparable to either Guangzhou or Shenzhen in terms of the comprehensiveness of their urban functions. Still take the value added of the city's tertiary industry that I quoted before as an example, the sum of the value added of the tertiary industry of the cities of Hangzhou and Nanjing in 2018 was just equal to that of the city of Guangzhou. Hangzhou, Nanjing and Guangzhou in the city scale, urban energy level and the obvious gap, not only affect their own development, but also become the Yangtze River Delta integration process of potential hidden worries.
Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Suzhou, these cities, the difference in the quality of economic development indicators is generally not very big, whether it is GDP per capita, or the number of listed companies and other indicators, and there is no order of magnitude difference. But Guangzhou's population and economic scale, so that it gets a huge magnet effect, is Hangzhou, Nanjing and Suzhou three cities do not have at all.
Special attention should be paid to the fact that Guangdong Province domicile itself lacks all the added value of education, health care and other public **** services on the municipal domicile, Guangdong has been pursuing a fairly open settlement system, which has further pushed up the population growth of Guangzhou and Shenzhen. However, for a number of reasons, Shanghai is currently unlikely to liberalize the household registration, but also to strictly control the size of the resident population, if you can not let Hangzhou, Nanjing and other cities in the Yangtze River Delta to form an important national resource distribution center and an important regional gateway, it will only allow many potential population that may enter the Yangtze River Delta to flow to the Pearl River Delta.
The Pearl River Delta's talent policy is remarkable. Yesterday (26), Shenzhen Vice Mayor Wang Lixin publicly said that Shenzhen will implement the Ministry of Finance and the State Administration of Taxation's Circular on Preferential Policies for Individual Income Tax in Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao Greater Bay Area (No. 31), which reduces the marginal tax rate for talent in short supply from 45% to 15%, and that Shenzhen's local government will help such talent make up for the tax. The Pearl River Delta's hunger and outstanding policy efforts in attracting talents should mirror the Yangtze River Delta.
4, low economic density affects the ability to accommodate
Measuring a modern economy, a very important criterion is density. Compared with the Pearl River Delta, the population density of the Yangtze River Delta is significantly lower. Under the condition that aggregation creates value, lower population density also means lower economic density (GDP per unit area).
Let's look at the table above. In the middle there is a comparison of the population and economic density of the Yangtze River Delta (YRD), nine cities in Guangdong and the total Pearl River Delta (including Hong Kong and Macao), it seems as if the YRD and nine cities in Guangdong have more or less the same population density and economic density, but in fact, this is mainly due to the Pearl River Delta's Zhaoqing, Jiangmen, Huizhou three cities with a large area and a small population to pull it down, in terms of the core YRD cities and the core cities of the Pearl River Delta to look at the left side of the YRD city's economic density, which is much lower than that of the Pearl River Delta.
Hangzhou, Ningbo domain mountainous area, population density is relatively low, and other cities are not very comparable. However, the population and economic densities of Nanjing, Suzhou and Wuxi in Southern Jiangsu Province are also much lower than those of the PRD. Ning Su Wuxi three cities in the highest economic density of Wuxi, each square kilometer to create the GDP is only 247 million, not only far below the Guangzhou-Shenzhen, but also worse than Foshan (Foshan, each square kilometer of the GDP has 256 million).
Low economic density means relatively low output and fewer jobs in the same area, compared to areas with higher economic density. Physical constraints on people's commuting activities mean that cities cannot expand indefinitely, and a city with low economic density is relatively weak in terms of population attraction and carrying capacity.
Those who are bullish on the Yangtze River Delta once proposed the notion that Shanghai and Suzhou, as a single entity, would be China's largest urban economy. But it's important to note that the densities of the two cities, Shanghai and Suzhou, are not high compared to the core of the PRD.
Shanghai and Suzhou have a combined area of 14,800 square kilometers, which is more than the combination of Guangzhou, Dongguan and Shenzhen or Guangzhou, Foshan and Dongguan. It must be known that the three cities of Guangzhou, Dongguan and Shenzhen have a total area of only 11,900 square kilometers, that is to say, from the spatial point of view of Guangzhou, Dongguan and Shenzhen is much more dense than Shanghai and Suzhou. Therefore, whether it is GDP per capita, economic density or population density, Guangzhou-Dongguan-Shenzhen are stronger than Shanghai-Suzhou. That is, according to the Guangzhou-Foshan-Dongguan count, although Guangzhou's leading position is not as good as Shanghai, Dongguan-Foshan and Suzhou are similar to industrial cities, but it is still difficult to distinguish between them, GDP per capita, economic density and population density is only slightly lower than that of Shanghai-Suzhou, roughly still in an order of magnitude.
The data validates people's most intuitive feelings. In the Pearl River Delta (PRD), cities are really connected to each other in a completely contiguous state, and there is almost no farmland left when traveling between Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Foshan, and Dongguan; while in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD), large tracts of farmland still exist between cities.
Guangdong and Jiangsu used to bite the GDP figures, but now Jiangsu is gradually being left behind by Guangdong, the main reason, is the lower density of cities in Jiangsu, Suzhou, Nanjing, the center of the city's employment opportunities are limited, the carrying capacity of the foreign population is low, and the natural attraction is poor.
The chart above shows the number of new permanent residents in some cities over the past five years. Hangzhou, a "dominant player" in the Yangtze River Delta, still has less than half the permanent population of Shenzhen, Chengdu and Guangzhou in the past five years, and is only roughly comparable to Zhengzhou. Nanjing, Suzhou in the past five years, population growth has almost stagnated. 2013 year-end, the resident population of Suzhou is only 50,000 less than Shenzhen, and by the end of 2018, the gap has widened to 2.3 million. In all fairness, Suzhou "1 + 4" model in the center of the city's economic volume is small, the negative effects of weak external attraction has appeared. (See "Why Suzhou wants to build an airport")
5, the lack of "urban villages", to the high cost of living for ordinary workers
Walking on the streets of the Yangtze River Delta city, and in the Pearl River Delta feel very different. Generally speaking, the cities in the YRD have a greater sense of order, are more polished and cleaner.
But that may not be all good.
Two-thirds of Shenzhen's resident population are groups of migrant industrial workers who have yet to settle in the city (see "Will Hong Kong's Today Be Shenzhen's Tomorrow?"). The secret is simple - urban villages. There are 1,427 urban villages in Shenzhen, accounting for one-sixth of the city's area, and half of Shenzhen's permanent residents live there. At one point, Shenzhen's municipal administrators wanted to demolish the villages, but in the end they opted for a "transformation" plan that optimized the environment while preserving the villages.
The water is so clear that there are no fish. Shenzhen knows that without low-cost living spaces like urban villages, the city would not be able to maintain the huge and complete chain of industrialization that it has today.
This phenomenon is not only found in Shenzhen, but also in the major industrial areas of Guangzhou (Panyu, Huangpu, Baiyun), as well as in Foshan and Dongguan, where urban villages are prevalent and constitute the most suitable living space for migrant workers. In the Yangtze River Delta, on the other hand, there are far fewer such urban villages and city-side villages.The difference of a full 600,000 new permanent residents between the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta in the year 2018 stems in large part from this.
Some people may say that the industrial workers are all "live-in", the company has dormitories, it does not matter whether there is a "village in the city". This perception is also not one-sided, first of all, not all employers have dormitories; on the other hand, industrial workers or catering and other industries in general practitioners, job flexibility is great, and there is often a change of space; takeaway, courier and other industries, the relationship between the employer and the employees of the loose need to live in; the urban village itself that is a complete service industry ecosystem ...... all these kinds of
These are all evidence of the indispensability of urban villages to the economic vitality of the country.
The cities of the Yangtze River Delta, represented by Shanghai, are undoubtedly the best in the country in terms of standardized urban governance. However, a vibrant and dynamic city needs not only order, but also a moderate amount of "chaos" to bring the fireworks. It is impossible for any region to achieve economic high-end without the so-called "DIduan population". In a country like China, which has long relied on industry and general services, cities should not only create opportunities for university students, but also provide more low-cost living space for ordinary industrial workers. In this regard, the Yangtze River Delta should learn more from the experience of the Pearl River Delta, especially Shenzhen.
Written by:
I live in Hangzhou and have lived in Guangzhou before, so the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta are both familiar to me. As a new Hangzhou resident, I have always been a strong supporter of the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta.
Jiangnan is a place of humanities and beautiful scenery. From the Song Dynasty until 1949, the Yangtze River Delta was China's absolute and only economic core area. 1949, Hong Kong's emergence and Guangdong's pioneering opening up of the trend of the first, and gradually formed the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta two major regions side by side. However, it was only in the late 1980s and early 1990s that Guangdong overtook Jiangsu in terms of economic output.
Hangzhou Qianjiang New City
There is no doubt that the Yangtze River Delta is superior to the Pearl River Delta in terms of hinterland conditions and historical deposits, as well as in terms of scientific and educational strengths, and business traditions. However, it is also an indisputable fact that the YRD is far from fully utilizing its advantages. Compared with the Pearl River Delta, the Yangtze River Delta has a more obvious dependence on the path of traditional industries, and there is a lack of openness and flexibility, all of which are issues worth reflecting on.
This series of problems, reflected in the past few years in Guangdong and Jiangsu, the total amount of the gap continues to widen, but also reflected in the Yangtze River Delta relative to the Pearl River Delta and even the inland region of talent and population attraction continues to decline. Over the past five years, the combined permanent population of Nanjing and Suzhou has increased by only 45 percent of Zhengzhou's and 20 percent of Chengdu's, a figure that can be described in some ways as "frightening".
"East and west, south and north, to get rich in Guangdong". This proverb, which emerged in the 1980s and 1990s and still rings true today, is the powerful "brand mentality" that Guangdong has established in the minds of people across the country. For today's Yangtze River Delta, polishing the gold standard of livability and livability is still a top priority.
The Yangtze River Delta will always be a blessed land. Recognize your own coordinates to go farther.