The nation's plan to promote the development of its central region is now entering the key stage of implementation.

Conceptualized in the government work report delivered by Premier Wen Jiabao at the National People's Congress two years ago, the strategy for the "rise" of the country's central areas including Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Anhui, Jiangxi, and Shanxi provinces has mainly remained at a theoretical level with no policies and measures being adopted.

The six provinces, mainly situated in the country's hinterlands, have a population of 361 million, 28.1 percent of the country's total. And among them, 244 million people live in rural areas, 31.2 percent of China's total rural inhabitants.

Compared with the country's other areas, such as its eastern, northeastern and western regions, the central provinces have not formed an integrated economic area.

To promote their economic development, the central government has been actively organizing and sponsoring various forms of surveys and studies over the past two years on the six provinces' special characteristics.

The holding of a symposium on this ambitious project, which was organized in Beijing in mid-April by the Northeastern Region Rejuvenation Office under the State Council, was a very encouraging development.

The office has spearheaded discussions and policy research in the country's campaign to rejuvenate its old industrial heartland in the northeast.

The conclusions reached at this symposium have been submitted to the National Development and Reform Commission for assessment and approval. These will then act as the guidelines for the central government when it drafts concrete policies to promote the development of central China.

It has reported that a basic consensus has been reached among relevant officials and experts that policies adopted for the rejuvenation of northeast China will be applied to some old industrial cities in the central region.

According to the Chinese Economic Weekly, the Northeastern Region Rejuvenation Office has already conducted a series of surveys and policy studies in some cities in the central region.

In late March, a Communist Party of China Political Bureau conference, chaired by CPC General Secretary Hu Jintao, discussed the development of the central region and stressed that the project was one of the country's long-term strategic tasks.

"The strategy for the revitalization of the central region has already entered a substantive stage, and the next step is to lay down concrete policies," said Hai Fujun, director of the policy research office under Zhengzhou municipal government in Henan Province, after attending the Beijing symposium.

The six central provinces are part of the country's economic network that links its eastern, western, southern and northern regions.

Having long been called the country's granary and the cradle of its modern industry, the central region has made a great contribution to China's overall social and economic development.

But compared with the booming eastern regions, the advancing western region and the reviving northeastern region, the development of the central provinces has remained sluggish in recent years.

Problems related to agriculture, rural areas and farmers in the region have become increasingly serious, industrial structural adjustment has become increasingly difficult and resources are becoming increasingly exhausted.

The average annual growth of the region's gross domestic product (GDP) from 2001 to 2003 was 0.4 percent lower than that of the western region and 1.8 percent lower than the eastern region.

The gap in the economic aggregate between the six central provinces and the 10 eastern provinces and municipalities has become further wider, from 1/2.1 in 1990 to 1/2.8 in 2003.

The widening divide has also been embodied in per capita GDP.

In recent years, farmers in the central provinces have maintained an average 2.73 percent increase in their incomes, about two-thirds that of the country's total farming population.

Therefore, promoting the economic development of the central region seems particularly important to the country's overall economic development strategy.

The central government has drawn up many preferential policies and offered a great deal of financial assistance to promote the development of western regions and the rejuvenation of northeastern China.

What preferential policies will it extend to the central regions?

"When it comes to boosting development in central China, the central government should apply workable preferential policies it used to support the rejuvenation of the old industrial bases in northeastern China," said Yang Kaizhong, an economics researcher at Peking University.

He added that policies used for the development of the western region and the building of a new countryside can also be applied to the central region, he added.

Due to a high concentration of issues related to agriculture, rural areas and farmers, the central provinces should become the focus of government's efforts to build a new countryside, according to Yang.

"The country should apply those preferential polices which proved viable in the revival of old northeastern industrial bases to the central region, but they can not be blindly transplanted," said Wei Houkai, an economics researcher from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

"Due to the different economic conditions of the two regions, scientific and careful studies should be conducted as to which policies will suit the central provinces."

In their pursuit of more rapid development, the six central provinces should co-operate with each other and co-ordinate their development strategies.

However, all of the six provinces are currently vying with each other for the lead role in the country's campaign to boost the development of the region.

"The central provinces should cooperate with each other on the basis of mutual competition under the market economy conditions," Yang Kaizhong said.

In order to assist the overall development of the region, local governments should co-ordinate their development strategies.

"The central government should intervene to prevent them from engaging in blind and conflicting competition," said Zhang Keyun.

A central-level coordination body is badly needed to promote the development of central China, Zhang added.

(China Daily June 22, 2006)