Chinesepod - Go West policy has mixed result

Opinion / China Watch

Go West policy has mixed result

(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-11-24 08:28

CHONGQING - If you build it, they will come -- except perhaps to China's
vast, untapped western frontier.

Nearly seven years after Beijing launched its "Go West" campaign to lift
incomes, ease social tension and bring prosperity to an impoverished
region, foreign firms have saddled up mostly only for minor investments,
while domestic firms feel left in the dust.

Multinationals from Microsoft Corp. to Nokia, Motorola and Siemens have
set up research centers in big cities. But the list of players that have
invested the big sums that Beijing hoped for remains small and stagnant.

BNP Paribas's chief China economist, Chen Xingdong, summed things up with
a Chinese proverb: "The government thought once the phoenix tree was
planted, the phoenix would come. But it didn't."

The much-touted campaign, kicked off at the turn of the century, aimed to
revive the fortunes of the country's 12 poorest provinces or regions,
which are home to a quarter of China's people but account for just 15
percent of gross domestic product.

Beijing had hoped to narrow income disparities with the thriving east.

Some manufacturers have answered the call, seeking relief from rising
labor and living costs along an increasingly affluent eastern seaboard,
while retailers battling for consumers' dollars have discovered unsated
pockets of demand.

So the likes of Intel Corp. and Ford Motor Co. have set up plants in the
two biggest cities -- Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, and
Chongqing. Carrefour S.A. and IKEA have set up shop and plan more outlets.

Chongqing, a city of 30 million, boasts investment from more than 30 of
the top 500 corporations in the world.

"Multinationals move westwards, building research and development centers
in cities like Chengdu, because of low-cost but well-educated talent,"
said William Kusters, chief of the China Mission of the Asian Development
Assistance Board.

TOO REMOTE

But overall, foreign direct investment in the west, spanning two-thirds
of the sprawling country, has amounted to less than $2 billion a year
between 2000 and 2005 -- less than half the total that Shanghai alone has
attracted.

"The main challenge for the west remains infrastructure, and there are
not enough items that attract foreign investment," said Kusters. "The
west is like an economic island in the middle of nowhere. There is not
much interaction with the rest of China."

For some firms, western China's isolation is a boon.

Lafarge, the world's top cement firm, runs operations in Chongqing,
Chengdu, Guizhou and Yunnan, hoping to cash in on the government's push
to develop new infrastructure.

"All these provinces are mountainous areas that are naturally protected
from imports," said Cyrille Ragoucy, chief executive of Lafarge Shui On,
a joint venture with Shui On Construction and Materials Ltd..

For others, through, remoteness is a bane.

"It's still difficult to lay out a sales network in western rural areas
because of the poor infrastructure," said Frederick Leung, finance
director of TV maker Skyworth Digital Holdings Ltd..

Regions such as mountainous Xinjiang or Tibet remain transport
nightmares; Sichuan -- known for pandas and spicy cuisine -- is thousands
of kilometers from Shanghai; central provinces such as Henan or Hubei are
closer, but shipping goods to the coast is still costly and
time-consuming.

That's why western China's trade, which came to $164 billion in
2000-2005, made up just 5 percent of the nation's total.

Beijing has been trying to realize more of the west's potential by
providing tax breaks and incentives for energy, information industry,
telecommunications, biomedicines and space technology.

LONG MARCH

The central government has also directed about 70 percent of all
multinational aid and 70 percent of all tax revenues toward projects in
western China over the past six years, according to a cabinet-backed Web
site devoted to all things West
(http://www.chinawest.gov.cn/web/index.asp).

In one sense, the policy is working. Economic growth in the West averaged
10.6 percent a year from 2000 to 2005, outstripping the national rate of
9.4 percent.

But western China is starting with so much a disadvantage that the faster
growth it is now enjoying risks going unnoticed.

"What worries people in the west is that the gap between east and west is
actually widening, no matter in absolute or relative terms," said Wei
Wei, director of the Western China Economic Development Research Centre
in Xi'an.

Xiang Wenbo, executive president of machinery maker Sany Corp., reckons
the government must do more.

"Capital only follows profit. Current policies are not flexible enough,"
he said. "The government should provide more incentives, such as more
favorable tax rates and land policies."

Even then, it may take another decade before Chengdu and Chongqing catch
up with their coastal city cousins. For other places, it will be a
marathon, not a sprint.

"It is a Long March, requiring several generations' efforts," Kusters
said.

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