Economic Essays: The Story of “Connection” is Endless
Recently, stories of "connection" have come one after another.
On June 15, the Yangtze River Delta High-speed Rail Super Loop Line was officially opened. The starting point is in Shanghai, and the entire line goes around three provinces and one city. There are almost no people who really ride from the starting point to the end point, but the added convenience along the way is obvious. This circular route arrangement is more like the logic of the subway.
At this time last year, Suzhou Metro Line 11 was opened and connected with Shanghai Metro Line 11 at Huaqiao Station. Since its birth, the subway has been defined as a means of transportation within the city and at the doorstep. The subway between the two cities marks a major step forward in "urbanization".
For Shanghai Metro Line 11, this scene is actually the sequel of the story. Many years ago, it stretched directly from the center of Shanghai to Kunshan, Jiangsu, becoming the first inter-provincial subway line. Now, after the two Lines 11 are connected, you can pick up a basket of crabs from the Yangcheng Lake, take the subway all the way to Shanghai People's Square.
The earliest story of metro integration took place in the Pearl River Delta. More than a decade ago, Guangzhou built a metro to the center of Foshan. Since then, Guangzhou-Foshan integration has been leading the country. Now, one year after the Jiangsu-Shanghai metro was connected, the Pearl River Delta has taken another big step forward - at the end of May, "four lines were connected" between Guangzhou, Foshan, Zhaoqing, Dongguan and Huizhou, and the "Bay Area metro" is here.
This is not a subway connection between two cities, but a subway connection between a large number of cities. The biggest difficulty is not in technology, but in the fact that the investment and operation entities of high-speed rail and subway are different. The essence of "connection" is full coordination among various entities and new breakthroughs in institutional and mechanism reforms.
The "connection" on the track is tangible and perceptible. But this is not the most difficult "connection". In the three provinces and one city in the Yangtze River Delta, cross-provincial "connections" are quite complex, centering on planning systems, scientific and technological innovation, industrial chains, environmental protection, judicial cooperation, market supervision, fair competition, mutual recognition of standards, energy security, etc., which are related to concepts, mechanisms, interests and habits. They must be promoted by the government and formed by the market.
This is a reshaping of the Yangtze River Delta "from the inside out."
"Move forward step by step, push forward one by one", General Secretary Xi Jinping put forward requirements for the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta. The three provinces and one city "take one step at a time", from "who am I" to "who am I to you", and then to "who are we", redefining the relationship between each other. "'Yangtze River Delta' is our common name" - during the symposium of major leaders in the Yangtze River Delta region held a few days ago, this sentence was impressive.
Looking at the northeast, a new bridge was built over the Nenjiang River half a year ago.
On this side of the bridge is Da'an City in Baicheng, Jilin. On the other side of the bridge is Zhaoyuan County in Daqing, Heilongjiang. For many years, residents on both sides of the strait drank the water of the Nenjiang River and ate the fish of the Nenjiang River together, but it was not easy to meet each other. They took ferries in the summer and walked on the ice in the winter. Now, a bridge connects them, the traffic in the surrounding areas has been revitalized, cooperation has been stimulated, and the connection of policies and mechanisms has been accelerated. When tourists from the south flocked to Harbin, many Harbin people were driving to Da'an to eat fish by the river.
This summer, the "integrated high-quality coordinated development of six cities in southern Jilin, northern Liaoning and eastern Inner Mongolia" has entered its third year. The six prefecture-level cities of Siping, Liaoyuan and Tonghua in southern Jilin, Fushun and Tieling in northern Liaoning, and Tongliao in eastern Inner Mongolia were relatively backward in the past, but now they are trying to break the provincial and municipal boundaries and strive to develop in a "group".
The "connection" of the six cities is benchmarked against the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze River Delta, and Pearl River Delta regions, with both "hard connectivity" and "soft connectivity" being promoted, including "joint development of industries, joint planning of projects, joint competition of policies, joint construction of infrastructure, joint development of resources, sharing of markets, and joint construction of platforms." "Together" is the soul, and "coordinated development" is the mission.
Let's look at the Southwest. "One door, two things."
Last week, the Sichuan-Chongqing Gaozhu New District Government Service Center was completed, and enterprises and residents in the new district can come to "one-stop service". More than three years ago, Sichuan and Chongqing joined hands to establish the Sichuan-Chongqing Gaozhu New District across two provinces and four towns in the vicinity of Guang'an, Sichuan and Yubei, Chongqing. This "connection" directly stands at the forefront of the comprehensive deepening of reforms - this is the first cross-provincial, entity-operated new district in the country, and is exploring the reform of moderate separation of economic and administrative areas.
The "connection" between provinces is very specific in practice - there are 118 substantive differences in tax and fee policies between the two provinces and cities, and 67 of them have been unified so far; Sichuan has more hydropower, Chongqing has more thermal power, and the electricity-related policies are different. Now, 40 cross-provincial differences have been unified to achieve integrated services; cross-provincial financial services, medical insurance, social security, traffic management, mutual recognition of professional titles, etc. are gradually becoming "integrated" in the "connection".
The benefits of "connection" are obvious, but the difficulties are still to come. The exploration of Sichuan-Chongqing Gaozhu New Area has given the Chengdu-Chongqing Twin Cities Economic Circle a major national strategy to build an exploration "vanguard".
The whole country is busy "connecting", reflecting the requirement of high-quality development for "adhering to a systematic concept" and the increasingly higher requirements of "systematic, holistic and coordinated" for comprehensively deepening reform.
Nothing about “connection” is easy. The most difficult part is people, the biggest motivation is people, the people who benefit the most are people, and the people who tell the most vivid stories are people.
The matter of "connection" is not afraid of difficulty. The difficulty is the potential point and the breakthrough point.
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