Special report: The Pearl river delta (I)

choi

Jewel in the crown; The Pearl river delta is China's most dynamic, open and innovative region, says Vijay Vaitheeswaran. Economist, Apr 8, 2017
http://www.economist.com/news/sp ... e-region-says-vijay

Quote:

"Not far from the [Luohu] border crossing is Hubei 湖贝村, one of the city's original communities. * * * It [village] is indeed shabby compared with Nanshan 深圳市南山区 [有大南山、小南山和建村历史700多年的南山村: zh.wikipedia.org], a wealthy high-tech neighbourhood nearby with an average income per person of over $50,000 a year.

"The PRD [Pearl river delta] is home to nine mainland cities in the province of Guangdong, notably Shenzhen and Guangzhou (formerly Canton) [plus 佛山、东莞、中山、珠海、惠州、江门、肇庆: zh.wikipedia.org], as well as to China's special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau. The World Bank recently declared the PRD the world's biggest megacity, surpassing Tokyo. With over 66m residents, it is more populous than Italy [62m (July, 2016 estimate): CIA World Factbook] or, just, Britain [64.4m (same): same].

PRD "has one of the world's most successful economies. Its GDP, at more than $1.2trn, is bigger than that of Indonesia, which has four times as many people. It has been growing at an average of 12% a year for the past decade. As a global trading power the region is outranked only by America and Germany.

"Though it [PRD] accounts for less than 1% of the country's territory and 5% of its population, it generates more than a tenth of its GDP and a quarter of its exports. * * * it is a shining example of the China that works.  None of this would have happened without free enterprise.

"Even so, this great workshop to the world [PRD] is now facing a number of challenges. * * * the flow of migrants into the region is drying up. The net inflow of migrants into Guangdong has fallen by nearly half since 2008, from 1.1m to just 600,000 last year. Over the same period the net outflow of workers from Hunan, a poor neighbouring province, dropped from 286,000 to barely 30,000.

"Unlike the Yangzi river delta cluster around Shanghai, which focuses on the domestic market, the PRD serves the world, so its infrastructure was designed mainly for exports.

"In contrast [to China as a whole], the PRD's economy is made up mostly of private companies. Of the more than 100 giant SOEs [state-controlled enterprises] controlled directly by the central government, only four are based in this market-minded region. The delta's nimble firms have long been exposed to brutal competition in global markets. Some have succumbed or moved to cheaper places, but many of those that remain are world class.

Note:
(a) The briefing thinks highly of PRD. This is the introduction in the briefing. There is no need to read the rest of this report, which is familiar.
(b) About quotation 2. just (adv): "by a very small margin : BARELY <just too late>"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/just

(c) About quotation 3.
(i) With 2016 population of 39.25m, California economic output in 2015 was 2.48t, overtaking Brazil to become world's 6th largest economy (and now behind France).   (In early June every year, Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) of US Department of Commerce releases preliminary data of economic output of every state for the previous year.

California. BEA, Mar 28, 2017.
https://www.bea.gov/regional/bea ... STATE&geotype=3
(ii) "As a global trading power the region [PRD] is outranked only by America and Germany.

Come to think about it, The Economist overlooks Japan. The differences of GDP among US, China, Japan and Germany (in that order) are too large, that even though Japan has devalued its currency, there is no way for Germany to catch up in the near future.

Japan's population is 1.5 times of Germany's. For Germany to surpass Japan, the former's per capita GDP (be it by exchange rate of PPP), must be 1.5 times of the latter's (or put another way, Japan's must be two thirds (2/3) of Germany's).
(A) Germany: population 80.7m (July 2016 estimate); GDP (official exchange rate): 3.5t (2015 est); GDP (purchasing power parity): $3.979t (2016 est)
(B) Japan: population: 126.7m ((July 2016 estimate); GDP (official exchange rate): $4.73t (2015 est.); GDP (purchasing power parity): $4.932 trillion (2016 est)

Data for both Germany and Japan are obtained today from online CIA World Factbook.