Beijing Mulling Plans to Build "Metropolitan Economic Circle"

Anchor: In the draft outlines of its 12th five-year plan, the Beijing municipal government has now put forward the idea of building a "Metropolitan Economic Circle" which covers the surrounding provinces. The proposal is a continuation of earlier attempts to integrate the "Bohai Sea Rim" region. Our Wu Jia has more.

Since 2004, China's central government has put into place a series of measures to improve the industrial, commercial and energy efficiency in the Bohai Bay region. These include the relocation of Shou Gang, the capital iron and steel plant, to the Tang Shan area and the building of a bullet train between Beijing and Tianjin.

Gilbert Van Kerckhove, adviser to the Beijing Mayor for the 12th five-year plan, says these are among the government's overall plan to integrate the economies of this region to make them stronger as a whole.

"When you look at China on a map, there are already two other very similar regions, like, one being the Yangtze River Delta, the other one being the Pearl River Delta, so the Bohai Sea Rim is actually to put into place a similar region in the northern part of China, close to Beijing."

During the process of urbanization, a huge population began flowing into Beijing, putting great pressure on the capital's transportation and energy supply systems. The local government hence brought up the idea to build a "Metropolitan Economic Circle," emphasizing Beijing's political and administrative functions as a capital city.

Zeng Xianzhi, Director of the Business Administration department of the Beijing Administrative College, suggests Beijing and its neighboring provinces break their administrative boundaries to make a coordinated development plan, instead of using the "Economic Circle" as a tool to satisfy their own interests.

"If Beijing only uses the 'Economic Circle' as a solution to alleviate its pressure, while Hebei rushes to build satellite cities around Beijing to boost its own economy, it could result in a huge waste of resources and conflicts of interests between different provinces."

As adviser Gilbert Van Kerckhove says, to better alleviate Beijing's population pressure, those satellite cities around Beijing need to improve their living conditions so that people are willing to move there.

"On the level of investment facilities, but also social services, including medical, schools and everything. If you want this to succeed, we must give the population adequate living and working conditions for not only the individual but also the family."

As the municipal government finalizes the "Metropolitan Economic Circle" plan, it has to figure out how those neighboring provinces come up with coordinated plans to build a transport network, an energy sharing system, and an industrial cooperation mechanism to improve the overall development of the region.

For CRI, I'm Wu Jia.