Is Qingdao the "leader" of Shandong, the country's largest economic province, in decline? Wang Qingxian, then secretary of the Qingdao Municipal Party Committee, said frankly in his speech at the 2021 Qingdao National People's Congress, "Only by recognizing the backwardness of Qingdao can we face the shortcomings." A year ago at the two sessions, Wang Qingxian also said bluntly, "From the pattern of urban competition, as the third city in the north, we have no way back."
For a long time, Qingdao's level of economic development in the northern cities, second only to Beijing and Tianjin. But in recent years, "the third city in the north" throne but there is a risk of displacement , Xi'an, Zhengzhou and other cities are developing rapidly, the total GDP once close to Qingdao. Is Qingdao really lagging behind as Mr. Wang said? Why is Qingdao not retreating?
In recent times, Qingdao is a city with a glorious history, once like Shanghai and other coastal metropolises, representing the precursor to China's industrialization and modernization.
The colonial experience brought suffering to the people of Qingdao, but it also brought the seeds of modern industry and modernization, nurturing brands such as Tsingtao Beer, Qingdao's textile industry and other traditional industries ranked among the most advanced in the Far East, and the Jiao-Ji Railway, municipal construction, and port facilities ranked among the nation's leaders.
During the planned economy era, Qingdao's industry continued to lead the way. In the city's industrial development, there was a "Qingdao". "The term refers to the three major textile bases in China - Shanghai, Qingdao and Tianjin. At the beginning of the country, the light textile industry was a national pillar industry, an important factor in determining the pattern of urban development.
Which city has a good textile industry development, it can be in the competition of the development of China's cities, the mid-1930s, Qingdao has formed a yarn spinning, printing and dyeing, machinery production and other categories, the industrial chain complete production system, production capacity of the country ranked third.
The textile industry base also drove Qingdao's economic development, and Qingdao's economic ranking was always in the forefront of the country in the decades after the founding of the PRC. During the new period of reform and opening up, Qingdao actively adjusted its industrial structure.
In 1984, Qingdao was listed as one of the first 14 coastal open cities, and became a pioneer in opening up to the outside world.
In the same year, the home appliance brand Haier was formally established, and the two little boys in swimming trunks (which stood in for the Haier logo) later developed rapidly under the leadership of Zhang Ruimin, and Hisense, Tsingtao Beer, Shuangxing, and Aucma became the "Five Golden Flowers", ushering in Qingdao's manufacturing industry. The spring of Qingdao's manufacturing industry. These five first-tier brands were very popular in the 90's, strongly promoting Qingdao's economic development, Qingdao also has the reputation of "brand capital".
At the same time, Qingdao has been actively developing foreign trade and maritime transportation by taking advantage of its geographic location. It has trade relations with more than 450 ports in more than 130 countries and regions around the world, which has promoted the development of port trade and marine scientific research, and Qingdao has rapidly grown into a vibrant city.
The blossoming of the "Five Golden Flowers" is the result of the successful transformation of Qingdao's industry, which has led to the city's sustained prosperity in the past three decades. However, in recent years, compared to the Pearl River Delta (PRD) and Yangtze River Delta (YRD) metropolises that have successfully transformed and upgraded their industries over and over again, Qingdao no longer appears to be so flashy, and even lacks a sense of loneliness.
Now, although the old "five golden flowers" are still active in the domestic market, but the influence and market competitiveness is not as good as in the past, "five golden flowers" after whether there will be "five The company's business is still active in the domestic market, but its influence and market competitiveness are not as strong as in the past. In addition, with the rise of the Internet, finance and other tertiary industries, Qingdao's industrial structure is still dominated by traditional manufacturing, and economic growth is inevitably weak.
Let's look at a few figures. Since 1990, Qingdao's GDP has been ranked between 9 and 15 in the country, and from 2005 to 2010, Qingdao had a golden period of development, stabilizing its ranking in the top ten, and in 2008, it achieved a good result of ranking ninth in the country.
But since 2010, Qingdao's ranking has fallen out of the top ten, and has not stepped into the top ten since. 2016, Qingdao and Nanjing at the same time among the "trillion club", but the ranking has been reversed; 2019, Qingdao GDP is still broken trillion.
But on the one hand, it was overtaken by Wuxi and Ningbo, ranking from 12th to 14th; on the other hand, followed by Zhengzhou and Qingdao's GDP difference of about 15.161 billion yuan, Zhengzhou from the "third city in the north" status is only one step away.
In 2020, Qingdao's GDP has not yet been announced. At the two sessions held in January, Qingdao's acting mayor revealed in the government's work report that GDP is expected to reach 1.2 trillion yuan, from the published data of other provinces and cities, in 2020, Qingdao's GDP is difficult to enter the top ten, the probability of still hovering around the 14th. From the above data, Qingdao's development performance in recent years can only be described as poor. Qingdao, it's time to get anxious.
In recent years, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Chongqing, Hangzhou and other cities in turn on the net red list, even Guiyang also rely on the big data center and the eye of the sky to get the rapid development, attracting more and more young people's attention. The flow of high-quality talent directly determines the direction of a city's future development. In this era when the element of talent is crucial, everywhere has opened a war to grab people, and young people vote with their feet.
But Qingdao, because the entire industrial system is biased towards traditional manufacturing as well as long-term advantage of the project tourism, but instead appears to be a lack of selling points on the network. In terms of economic development, Qingdao's total GDP ranks among the top 15 cities in the country, second only to Beijing and Tianjin, and is known as the "Third City of the North.
Qingdao's coastal scenery and deep historical background also attracted countless tourists. But this Qingdao, but can not keep young people. On April 25, 2019, then Qingdao Municipal Party Committee Secretary Wang Qingxian asked a "soul question": All said Qingdao is good, why is the proportion of local employment of college students not high?
On the one hand, Qingdao lacks new industries, such as finance, IT and even new media, these new era of the more popular professionals is difficult to find good prospects in Qingdao counterparts. There was an article that said, The Northeast is a hometown that young people from the Northeast can no longer return to.
The traditional industry is dominant, the human society is prevalent, these all make the young people are at a loss.
Qingdao has a similar problem. Qingdao's industrial structure is divided into five parts: first, state-owned light industrial enterprises (Haier, Hisense, Tsingtao Brewery, etc.); second, state-owned heavy industry (Qingdao Port, petroleum, chemical industry, etc.); third, labor-intensive private enterprises (apparel, toys, etc.); and fourth, small and medium-sized trade, finance and other service industries.
As you can see, Qingdao's industrial structure is biased towards manufacturing and labor-intensive industries, and it is difficult for professionals in finance, IT, and even new media to find a job in Qingdao that has a good outlook.
On the other hand, Qingdao's real estate market is catching up with the first-tier cities, and the tens of thousands of dollars in housing prices are scaring away the fresh graduates who are earning an average of only 4,000 dollars per month. The price of housing has gone up, and the housing conditions are not satisfactory. The problem of urban villages in Qingdao is still a persistent problem, even in urban areas.
From the center of the city or tourist attractions to drive out 10 minutes, you will see a lot of dilapidated buildings, are not planning and remodeling, high-rise buildings, the other end of the road is the other end of the dilapidated urban villages of the scenario is not uncommon, there is a Qingdao is " with a gold-rimmed rag " said, so the city of Qingdao is the " with a gold-rimmed rag".
In addition, Qingdao's media, and even that of the entire Shandong province, is not well developed, and the soft output and publicity ability of the outside world is extremely mismatched with its economic status.
Even with its rich history and beautiful coastal scenery, Qingdao has not been a strong attraction for talent from other parts of the world.
With food, tourism, history, and Qingdao stars like Huang Bo and Huang Xiaoming, Qingdao has a myriad of promotional resources. Consider the recent news that Qingdao has attracted the attention of the whole country, news such as the 38 yuan price of prawns, foreigners jumping the queue and fighting with citizens during the epidemic, all of which are wearing down the image of Qingdao in the minds of young people.
Young people are the new blood of the city's development, and without a constant flow of blood, the city's decline seems inevitable.
In 2004, Haier's global sales revenue reached 101.6 billion yuan, an instant success. In the same year, Tencent was listed in Hong Kong, and Ma Huateng was honored with the 2004 CCTV China's Economy Annual New Talent Award. At the awards ceremony, the host invited Ma Huateng to sell QQ to Zhang Ruimin, and Ma Huateng said, Future QQ will be a new type of communication, which will change the way of life.
However, this did not arouse the interest of Zhang Ruimin. After listening to Zhang Ruimin, smiled and politely refused: "Now there is no convince me, thank you for the wonderful introduction just now." This conversation, I do not know is the program group intentionally arranged, or Zhang Ruimin's real reaction.
The QQ that didn't convince Zhang Ruimin later convinced a billion Chinese. This Internet race in the new millennium, represented by Qingdao, Shandong simply did not want to participate, and so back to God, has missed the wind.
2020 China's mainland city GDP list, the top ten cities, in addition to Beijing, the other nine cities are in the south. In an era where a new industrial and information revolution is on the horizon, tertiary industries such as the Internet and finance are opportunities for future development.
Shanghai's financial industry, Hangzhou and Shenzhen's Internet industry, and Nanjing and Wuhan's high-tech industry are performing well. Compared to the early opportunities in the south, new and old energy transformation of the northern cities of the heavy pace, the gap between the north and south is also further widening .
The northern cities represented by Qingdao have lost their traditional manufacturing advantages on the one hand, and lack of new economic growth points on the other, with insufficient economic vitality, insufficient innovation, loss of population, and slow growth, and the total economic output of the northern region accounted for only 35.2% of the national total in 2019, a decline of 7.6 percentage points from 2012, northern cities generally have insufficient new kinetic energy in terms of industry, technology. , and insufficient new kinetic energy in technology.
If you don't upgrade and transform your industry in time, you're bound to lack the power to keep growing in the future. In a nutshell, Qingdao's declining economic position reflects the trend of China's economic center of gravity gradually shifting south, behind the entire northern economy of the entire loss of voice. So, how did the stereotype of contemporary China's "open and advanced south, declining and conservative north" come about? The author believes that there are three main reasons:
First of all, the development gap between the north and the south, originating from the choice of different roads. 2008 financial crisis struck, the southern coastal areas resolutely decided to vacate their cages and change birds, industrial transformation and upgrading, to technology and innovation to lead the drive for development; and during the same period of time, the north, is still stuck in the traditional industries, obsessed with bigger and stronger. The same period in the north, still clinging to traditional industries, obsessed with bigger and stronger.
What's more, the concept of "Elephant Economy" has been put forward, which means further strengthening the dominant position of state-owned capital-led enterprises in the regional economy. Under the new concept of high-quality development, Qingdao, Shandong and even the entire northern city of the "elephant climbing" type of old road has been thorny.
Secondly, from the logic of history, since the reform and opening up of China's development logic is " opening up forced reform ". Which place is open to the strength of the reform, which place is the strength of the reform, the harvest of the reform and opening up of the "dividends" will be more.
From the map, the Pearl River basin open front is Shenzhen, Guangzhou; Yangtze River basin open "window" is Shanghai; and the Yellow River basin and even China's northern lack of cities can lead the opening . Tianjin, Dalian, Qingdao, and Yantai have all participated in the opening up, but basically they are "fighting on their own" and have not formed a cluster effect, not to mention that it is impossible to create a city comparable to Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macao, "
This is the first time I've ever seen the world's most popular TV program, and I've never been able to see it.
Therefore, finding a new important strategic pivot point is the key challenge and breakthrough for the future development of northern cities. Who can take the lead in this process to break through and lead the northern cities? Obviously, Qingdao is a "seed player", but there are many competitors.
More critically, the overall business environment in the North and the "bureaucratic disease" of sticking to the rules are not adapted to the market and the rule of law in the social development environment: the government officials have a strong sense of officialism, and the cultural atmosphere encourages conformity, which makes it difficult to nurture the seeds of innovation.
Let's take a look at a little story: a government official in Qingdao participated in a Qingdao-Shenzhen exchange of young entrepreneurs found that the three Shenzhen entrepreneurs who came to participate in the meeting were all Shandong people. After a conversation about the contrast between Shandong and Shenzhen's entrepreneurial environment, the official said to the entrepreneurs, Being from Shandong but starting a business in Shenzhen is not your problem, it's our problem.
In Qingdao, local leaders are also "painfully aware of the pain" and are motivated to innovate. Wang Qingxian, then secretary of the Qingdao Municipal Party Committee, put forward the idea of "learning from Shenzhen and catching up with Shenzhen" in the second month after he took office. The benchmarking of Shenzhen is to learn the spirit of openness, innovation and reform.
To create a market economy and the development of the innovation economy market-oriented, the rule of law, professionalism, openness, service-oriented, efficiency, "three types of three types of" government services environment.
From Qingdao to send the bureau, the level of cadres did not go to the government, but directly to the Ping An Securities, Huawei, BYD, China Resources Group, Tencent and other enterprises, to the identity of an ordinary staff for the enterprise "work", stand counter!
After the officials came back, they still need to hand in their assignments and put forward improvement measures. Through this role swap, government officials have a deeper understanding of the market logic, gradually adapted to the logic of the market to plan things, make good use of the power of capital to do things thinking. If a new culture is formed, it will be an important boost to Qingdao's future development.
From the point of view of economic volume, Qingdao's GDP is still in the forefront of the country, although 2020 is still expected to keep the title of "the third city in the North", but at this point stands in the middle of the river, looking at the other side, while the water is already "dark tide rushing" . ".
Qingdao's industrial structure problems and talent attraction weaknesses and other issues have initially shown its negative impact, as the future of time to advance, its drawbacks are bound to gradually show. The future prospects of Qingdao, which has no way to retreat, will be better than ever. Will it always lag behind? The author is cautiously optimistic about the future of Qingdao.
The reason for this optimism is that Qingdao still has its unique advantages. As analyzed in the previous section, Qingdao's economic structure is biased towards industry and traditional manufacturing, and is lagging behind in the transformation of new tertiary industries, such as finance and the Internet, which need to be upgraded.
When it comes to industrial upgrading, companies like Huawei and Alibaba are essential, so does Qingdao have to cultivate companies like Huawei, Alibaba, and Tencent in order to call the transformation successful? In fact, not really.
Qingdao has a complete industrial system, the traditional industrial manufacturing industry accounted for the main body of the economic structure, some people attacked Qingdao's industrial structure is more heavy industry, but this is not a disadvantage , but rather is Qingdao turn the tide against the wind, the important foundation of the rise again.
On the contrary, the U.S. economy has been declining in the past few years, which has led to the emergence of a new generation of mobile devices that can be used in the future, and the development of a new generation of mobile devices that can be used in the future. Qingdao, which missed the mobile Internet boom, can't afford to miss the wave of industrial Internet development.
In the future development era of Industry 4.0, Qingdao's industrial manufacturing base undoubtedly has incomparable advantages. In the future, Qingdao must seize the opportunity of this round of industrial transformation and upgrading, promoting the upgrading of the industrial model of the vast number of manufacturing enterprises through convergence and innovation, Internet+, and creating a new engine of economic development.
In addition, Qingdao, as the hub of the "domestic and international double cycle", has the opportunity to open up and develop. 2020, Wang Qingxian, secretary of the foreign investment in the proposed, " investment in Qingdao is investment in national strategy ". Over the past 40 years of reform and opening up, Qingdao has been at the forefront of the opening up of the country: it has been selected as one of the first 14 open coastal cities, a separately listed city, and a sub-provincial city.
Become a leading city in the core area of Shandong Peninsula Blue Economic Zone, "New Asia-Europe Continental Bridge Economic Corridor" important node and "21st Century Maritime Silk Road" main node "dual-positioned city Currently, China is building a new development pattern with a domestic macrocycle as the main body and a domestic and international double cycle that promotes each other.
The domestic macrocycle must be a cycle that opens up the north and south and crosses the east and west.
Qingdao is both a developed city on the eastern seaboard and a major town north of the Yangtze River;
The integration of the two cycles of the domestic and international must be led by the opening up. Qingdao as East to Japan and South Korea, West through the inland "New Asia-Europe Continental Bridge Economic Corridor" the main node city.
This is the first time I've ever seen a city like Qingdao, and I've never seen a city like Qingdao.
It can be said that in the new development pattern, Qingdao is not only the double node of the internal and external "double cycle", but also the "key hub" of the domestic east-west, south-north cycle . ". Some readers may have questions, the so-called "sub-provincial city", "node city", "double cycle" in the end what is the use? A city can get rich by relying on a few "hats"?
The author believes that a few light words name seems painless, the substance behind it is the national policy support . And in China, policy means investment of resources. Why do students favor "211, 985" colleges and universities? Behind the six figures is a steady stream of real money support. Why did Shenzhen rise overnight in the early days of reform and opening up? The central government's special zone policy plays a key role.
By the same token, Qingdao's revival is expected to be supported by national policies. If you can learn from the past, change your mindset, grasp the opportunity of opening up under the "double cycle", promote innovation through opening up, and force reforms through innovation, Qingdao is bound to usher in a new round of development.
Finally, we come back to the issue of conceptual change: Qingdao first need to do, is to abandon the "third city in the north" status obsession.
The so-called third city of the North is only the ranking of the city's GDP, city development is a multidimensional complex systematic project.
Government officials should abandon the simple "City Championship" ranking thinking. Instead of focusing on the momentary development and quick success, they should look at the whole picture and base themselves on the long term, so as to accumulate momentum for Qingdao's strong revival again.