2010—Speech at the Consultation Forum on "Accelerating the Transformation of Economic Development" (Part 2)
Issues such as the blurring of government and enterprise, multiple systems on one mountain, and coexisting management mechanisms that hinder our city's tourism industry from growing stronger are long known to all. Yet for various reasons, no firm resolve was made for years. Now, as we discuss transforming economic development, we should seize the momentum of applying for and building a national comprehensive tourism reform pilot zone to resolve long-pending matters.
This article has been compiled from historical materials in the "Zhangjiajie Tour Guide Network" (33519.com · City Overview section). Some administrative divisions, population, socioeconomic data, and policy information may be outdated and are for reference only; for the latest situation, please refer to official releases by the local government and scenic areas.
Problems such as the lack of separation between government and enterprises, multiple systems on one mountain, and the coexistence of multiple management mechanisms that affect the expansion and strengthening of our city's tourism industry have long been known to all. However, due to various reasons, for many years no firm resolve has been made. Now that we speak of transforming the mode of economic development, we should take advantage of the east wind of applying for and building a national comprehensive tourism reform pilot zone to resolve the long-pending fundamental problems. Only when institutional obstacles are cleared can we truly promote the transformation and upgrading of the tourism industry from extensive to intensive, and truly advance the transformation of the tourism industry's development mode and structural adjustment.
II. To accelerate the transformation of our city's economic development mode, modern service industries should be raised to a status equal to that of new industrialization, so as to form a scientific development situation of "two-wheel drive" and "running neck and neck."
In China, the formulation "modern service industries" first appeared in the report of the 15th National Congress of the Party in September 1997. The 2000 Central Economic Work Conference further proposed: "It is necessary both to transform and upgrade traditional service industries and to develop emerging service industries such as tourism, information, accounting, consulting, and legal services."
The WTO's service industry classification standards define nine major categories of modern service industries, namely: commercial services, telecommunications services, construction and related engineering services, educational services, environmental services, financial services, health and social services, services related to tourism, and recreational, cultural, and sports services. By service object, they can generally be classified as: first, producer services, referring to transportation, wholesale, information transmission, finance, leasing and business services, scientific research, etc., with relatively high human capital and technical knowledge content; second, consumer services, referring to retail, accommodation and catering, real estate, culture, sports and entertainment, resident services, etc., which are labor-intensive and related to residents' lives; third, public welfare services, mainly health, education, water conservancy, and public management organizations, etc.
(1) The development of modern service industries shows four major trends.
1. Modern service industries are increasingly becoming the main component of the GDP composition of various countries and regions and the main carrier for absorbing employment.
According to World Bank statistics, as early as 2000, the world average share of the service sector in GDP was 62%, with the average for 34 low-income countries at 43.5%, for 48 middle-income countries at 52%, and for 22 high-income countries at 65%, while China's average was only around 50%. In terms of the share of employment absorbed by the service sector, in 2000 developed countries ranged from 60% to 78%, middle-income developing countries from 45% to 62%, and low-income developing countries from 30% to 45%, while China's average was still less than 40%. Take Lanzhou, the capital of Gansu Province in the underdeveloped western region, as an example: in 2000, in terms of the composition of Lanzhou's GDP, the primary industry accounted for 5.29%, the secondary industry for 46.85%, and the tertiary industry for 47.86%; but by 2005, the primary industry accounted for 3.9%, the secondary industry for 44.1%, and the tertiary industry had reached 52.0%.
2. The driving role of modern service industries on the primary and secondary industries is becoming increasingly prominent.
(1) Both the primary and secondary industries need the support of various service industries. In particular, the widespread application of information technology in the primary and secondary industries has increased their demand for related services, giving rise to the "phenomenon of industrial servitization." That is, the products of some industrial or agricultural sectors are mainly produced to provide a certain service, and knowledge and technology services, etc., are sold together with the products; such services will guide technological transformation and product innovation in the industrial and agricultural sectors.
(2) The increasingly prominent problem of resource depletion has led the primary and secondary industries to strive to reduce consumption of non-renewable resources and increase the use of renewable resources, so service industries will be more extensively integrated into them as intermediate inputs.
3. Producer services have become the main part of modern service industries.
That is, producer services such as communications, finance, insurance, logistics, agricultural support services, intermediary and professional consulting services have become the mainstream of the service sector.
4. Modern service industries will become the main driving factor in the development of high-tech industries.
On the one hand, the development of high-tech industries requires substantial support from specialized, highly efficient services, and modern service industries are an indispensable factor for the rapid development of high-tech industries; on the other hand, the development of modern service industries cannot be separated from the application of advanced technology, and thus has become the most important application field for high-tech industries centered on the information industry. In other words, the development of modern service industries causes their demand for information, biotechnology, new materials, and other high technologies and their products to grow increasingly, thereby greatly driving the
development of industries.
(II) Four major trends compel us to clarify two most basic viewpoints.
1. New industrialization, marked by modern manufacturing, and modern service industries are interdependent and mutually reinforcing, greatly accelerating economic development and the process of industrialization, prompting the global economy to move from the era of industrialization into the post-industrial era, with the emerging tertiary industry characterized by modern service industries dominating national and regional economic development.
This truth, tested by practice, applies equally to underdeveloped regions like ours.
2. Since new industrialization and modern service industries are interdependent and mutually reinforcing, and their mutual reinforcement only accelerates the process of industrialization, the view held by some that we must first complete the path of industrialization before developing modern service industries is clearly wrong. We should no longer let this rigid, conformist view affect our city's progress in modern service industries, and thereby affect our city's process of industrialization.
(III) Now let us return to the document we are here to discuss.
The document discusses "accelerated development" in nine areas: tourism transformation and quality improvement, new urbanization, new industrialization, agricultural modernization, informatization, cultural industry, modern service industries, social undertakings and improving people's livelihood, and ecological civilization construction. According to the content covered by modern service industries as defined earlier: the two major blocks of tourism and informatization both fall within the scope of modern service industries; several contents of the cultural industry and the main content of social undertakings and improving people's livelihood also fall within the scope of modern service industries; the living services and public welfare services in new urbanization, and the producer services in new industrialization, agricultural modernization, and even ecological civilization construction also fall within the scope of modern service industries. In other words, on the surface, modern service industries is only one of the nine areas of accelerated development, but in fact it either covers or intersects with the other eight areas of accelerated development.
This reflects two problems: first, modern service industries have in fact already entered every field of our city's economic development and occupy a share that cannot be ignored. Second, the objective existence and overall image of modern service industries have inadvertently been damaged by this decomposition, which reflects from one side that we have not yet formed sufficient attention to it.
From the domestic and international situation, modern service industries tend to form advantages in four types of cities and regions: first, political centers; second, economic centers; third, cultural centers; and fourth, tourism cities. We have one of these, namely being a tourism city, so we should be among those likely to form advantages. In fact, in addition to what was discussed earlier, modern service industries and new industrialization are interdependent and mutually reinforcing; developing modern service industries can accelerate the process of industrialization, drive the development of high-tech industries, accelerate the process of urbanization, and help enhance competitiveness in attracting investment, because service is environment, service is efficiency, and service is productivity—this is gradually becoming a consensus. Precisely because our city lacks advantages such as geographical location, regional position, and a high degree of urbanization in advancing new industrialization, we should all the more accelerate the development of modern service industries to promote the process of new industrialization and the development of high-tech industries, and to promote the process of new urbanization.
However, after all, there is now an Industrial Park Management Committee handling matters of new industrialization; but modern service industries are managed piecemeal here and there, lacking both practical near-term, medium-term, and long-term development plans and strong means and measures for dedicated promotion. Previously, I have more than once offered the suggestion that, based on our city's actual conditions, more attention and preferential treatment should be given to modern service industries. Today our theme is accelerating the transformation of the economic development pattern, so the position of developing modern service industries in transforming the economic development pattern is obviously even more prominent and important. Therefore, I once again urge the city's decision-making level to elevate modern service industries to a position equally important as new industrialization, in order to form a scientific development situation of "two-wheel drive" and "running neck and neck."
This should be a key measure for implementing the Scientific Outlook on Development based on Zhangjiajie's actual conditions.