محل FDI در توسعه اقتصادی منطقه ای چین: ظهور اقتصادجهانی دلتا

China's remarkable economic development and sustainable high growth rates since the 1980s have stimulated much discussion in recent literatures. Among the augments of China's rapid growth, voluminous recent literatures have emphasized that foreign direct investment (FDI) may best explain its recent growth record at both national and regional level. To understand how such sustained rapid regional growth happened in a huge country such as China, this paper examines the possible explanations of FDI absorption from the perspective of regional agglomerations by investigating (1) the emergence of two major globalized delta economies (GDEs), namely, Pearl River Delta (PRD) and Yangtze River Delta (YRD), due to FDI inflows; (2) the critical effects and functions of a core city in promoting FDI into GDEs; and (3) industry structure specialization in the periphery cities/counties in GDEs. Estimations were performed with a set of panel data at the city/county level for 1993–2003. Research results show that both core cities in GDEs have played significant role in attracting FDI. Compared with PRD, YRD had relatively higher estimated elasticities in FDI absorption and more diversified industry structure similarities among its cities and hence, possible higher intra-regional competition in terms of industry production. The possible formation of any effective city link in GDEs was also investigated. Reflections and policy implications regarding FDI promotion and regional growth in China were discussed.

China's remarkable economic development and sustainable high growth rates since the 1980s have stimulated much discussions and vigorous debates among academics during recent years. To understand how such a sustained rapid annual GDP growth of 9.6% has continued for the past quarter of a century during 1978–2004 in such a huge country as China, recent researches have attributed inward foreign direct investment (FDI) as the reason for this remarkable growth record. The huge FDI influx recorded to increase at an annual rate of more than 10% since 1985 and its spatial agglomeration/diffusion may best explain China's recent regional growth. Given the concern regarding the accuracy of government statistics on GDP and FDI made know by the academic community (Rawski, 2001 and Young, 1995), most of the empirical studies have supported the positive contributions of inward FDI to China's economic performance in general, and rapid growth in particular. Some recent studies have reconfirmed the critical importance of inward FDI upon future sustainable growth in China using a two-stage growth accounting decomposition approach (Whalley & Xin, 2006; Yao, 2006) while a regional growth perspective in other countries such as Russia (Brock, 2005) is also emphasized (Mullen & Williams, 2005).

Recent literatures have provided extensive supports for the positive relations and contributions of FDI to economic growth and development process especially in the large FDI receiving developing countries such as China. This study draws on the existing literatures and evidence and attempts to explain the emergence of the two major GDEs (PRD and YRD) as distinctive cases being different from the rest of China in regional growth in the presence of FDI. We have further argued that regional agglomeration effects as demonstrated by the functions of the city core and the interactions with its periphery cities to act together as an economic entity (CPS) will facilitate mobilization and absorption of FDI in GDEs and hence, sustainable regional growth.