By Sun Zhiyan & Shi Shujie, Research Team on “Coordinated Development Strategy for Qinba Mountain Areas”, DRC

Research Report, No.128, 2019 (Total 5628) 2019-8-5

Abstract: As one of the 14 contiguous poor areas in China, the Qinba Rim Mountain areas in China’s northwestern region, propelled by a number of national favorable policies, have achieved remarkable results in industries with distinctive advantages, infrastructure construction and public service provision. However, due to the lack of integrated planning and overall layout, there are still some prominent problems in poverty alleviation restricting the swift development of these areas. For example, it is hard to form sustainable endogenous economic growth drivers because of decentralized and homogeneous industrial development with simplex industrial structure in Qinba Mountain areas. The major cities have not fully played their role in fueling the development of surrounding areas and the coordinated development between the city clusters and the backward areas is not yet in place. The development mode based on the administrative regional division has led to the ecological barrier function of Qinba Mountain areas becoming fragmented and the pressure o `n regional environment protection has increased. Therefore, this paper suggests that the government departments focus on the entire ecosystem of Qinba Mountain areas, change the development mindset, remove the administrative regional division restrictions and segmentation, enhance the top-level design and strategic guidance at the national level, implement policies in a systematic manner and promote the Qinba Rim Mountain areas’ high-quality development through coordinated development.

Key words: Qinba Mountain areas, regional coordination, high-quality development