Sustainable axis of growth

After 30-plus years of reform and opening-up, China has witnessed booming economic development in its coastal, Pearl River and Yangtze River deltas and Bohai Sea-rim areas including Beijing and Tianjin. However, the vast swathe of its inland provinces still remains less developed or even backward. This imbalance has exerted different pressures on developed and under-developed areas.

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The large-scale flow of people from the inland areas to the economically prosperous regions has resulted in a drastic expansion of the cities in the eastern region adding to the local environmental degradation. Meanwhile, the outflow of labor and some market resources from the less-developed regions to more attractive areas has further added to their economic disadvantages.

Under these circumstances, the refreshed efforts to build the Yangtze River economic belt will help transfer some industries and resources already unsuitable for coastal regions to central and western ones in need to inject a new vitality into their economic development.

The revived plan for a Yangtze River economic belt came after the plan put forward by President Xi Jinping for the integrated development of Beijing, Tianjin and neighboring Hebei province. The integrated strategy for the three regions is also aimed at transferring some over-concentrated resources and industries from the better-developed and over-burdened Beijing to less-developed Hebei, so that the province can share the dividends brought about by the capital's resources spillover.

If smoothly advanced, the Yangtze River economic belt is also expected to help facilitate the building of the Silk Road economic belt, a concept that has been raised by China and involves several countries. Despite positive responses from some Central Asian and European countries, the realization of a Silk Road economic belt will take time given that lengthy and intricate coordination is still needed to balance the political and economic interests of countries concerned.

A Yangtze River economic belt will bring tangible economic benefits to China's inland areas and help bring the countries of the proposed Silk Road economic belt together. At the same time, the smooth advancement of the Silk Road economic belt will produce an important propulsive force for the boosting of the Yangtze River economic belt.

The author is a Shanghai-based economics commentator.