Op-Ed Contributors

A roadmap for development

By Dong Suocheng (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-08-04 09:14

The region also suffers from a lack of housing, medical services and employment opportunities.

The adoption of a resources-dependent economic model and shortsighted approach to conserving its fragile ecology has led to desertification and deterioration of its environment.

The environmental impact has not been mitigated fully although some progress has been achieved.

Due to lower pay structures and extreme weather conditions, the region has faced an outflow of talent, which has hampered local economic and social development.

The region must chart a unique ecological and economic development roadmap, rather than copying the development model followed by the eastern regions.

Only then can it achieve coordinated and sustainable development that takes into account its resource strength, environmental needs and distinct social characteristics.

Toward this end, greater effort must be made to strengthen the local ecosystem and facilitate sustainable development of the region.

Some workable measures must be taken to develop a green and cyclical economy. Cultivating green energy using wind, solar and hydropower sources should be accorded top priority in order to ensure that its industrial progress, environmental impact and tourism potential is balanced.

The central government should fundamentally alter its policy approach toward the vast underdeveloped region.

It must get preferential treatment in investment, resources and taxation to step up the pace of development.

An effective ecological compensation mechanism, and measures aimed at facilitating its implementation, should be put in place quickly to compensate for any likely negative fallout on its ecology during the development process.

The government must levy special taxes on enterprises that heavily exploit the region's resources. It must then use that money for economic development and ecological reconstruction of the underdeveloped region.

Taxation should serve as an important leverage to regulate the ecological-economic relationship in the vast western region.

The tax on prospecting and exploitation of mineral resources in the region must be hiked, and a stringent accountability mechanism put in place to improve the local environment and ecosystem.

National-level ecological zones also must be set up in the ecologically fragile region.

Preferential policies aimed at facilitating inflow of talent - such as raising incomes of those professionals who are willing to serve in the impoverished region - should also be unveiled.

The author is a researcher with the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, the Chinese Academy of Sciences.