The CIIE demonstrates China’s resolution in further opening-up and export-oriented economy. As globalization and informatization continuously develop and technological innovation and industrial upgrading constantly accelerate, cross-regional factor allocation is becoming increasingly obvious. Global city-regions, composed of global cities and their surrounding cities closely connected with each other, instead of global cities alone, are the spatial units participating in global division and competition. General Secretary Xi Jinping announced at the opening ceremony of the first CIIE that “we will support integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta region. We will make it a national strategy.” As the development opportunity and mission for all the cities in the Yangtze River Delta region, the CIIE needs the support of every one of them and its spillover effect will benefit the whole Yangtze River Delta region and promote higher-quality integrated development of the region. It can be said that the CIIE is a major initiative to pursue higher-level opening-up, and a leveraging point to realize higher-level integration. Meanwhile, that the CIIE and the Yangtze River Delta integration are inter-connected with each other is conducive to integrating domestic and foreign markets, providing new driving forces for economic growth, and promoting high-quality development of the country.

First, we should facilitate industrial transformation and upgrading of the Yangtze River Delta region based on collaboration and opening-up. As the pole of growth in the national economic development, the Yangtze River Delta region has established a good foundation in economic volume, industrial system, resources in science and innovation, market development, systems and environments, etc. It is China’s major spatial unit participating in global division system and global resource allocation. Since the CIIE has been held annually, this region will certainly benefit from it most directly and obviously. The CIIE is a platform for trade, investment, and communication, through which we can introduce advanced products, equipment, technologies, and investment from other countries, and understand the cutting-edges of international industrial development and technologies, thereby promoting integrated development of open economy. Based on collaboration and opening-up, we can deepen supply-side structural reform, optimize industry chain, improve value chain, develop innovation chain, and thus promote the optimized layout and coordinated development of key industries in the Yangtze River Delta region. We can work together to build regional collaborated innovation network and high-quality industry clusters, marching toward the middle- and high-end of global value chain through deep division and integration of industry chain.

Second, we should facilitate interconnection to promote market construction of regional integration. The core of the Yangtze River Delta regional integration development is to build an integrated market and realize free flow and optimized allocation of resource factors in different regions. And the CIIE, to some extent, can function as a significant method to bring down barriers that hamper flow of commodities and factors, because it will introduce a lot of people, goods, funds, information, and technologies. As planned in Memorandum on Construction and Cooperation of Market System Integration in the Yangtze River Delta Region, Jiangsu Province, Zhejiang Province, Anhui Province, and Shanghai City will coordinate with each other to secure services for the China International Import Expo, work together to build a trade service platform of the CIIE, and push forward the market system integration in the Yangtze River Delta region. In particular, one special spillover effect of the CIIE is to build a world-class business environment, and this provides an opportunity to strengthen joint construction and overall optimization of business environment in the Yangtze River Delta areas and take the lead in exploring the construction of uniform market rules acting on international convention, which is certainly conducive to constituting a greater regional and integrated market, unified and open while competent and orderly, in the Yangtze River Delta areas.

Third, we should strengthen synergy of different places to jointly guarantee services for the CIIE. To hold the CIIE needs to work systematically, covering service and security in many aspects including venue layout, personnel accommodation, commodities storage, transportation, communication, security check, etc. Especially the increasing influence has brought increasing number of enterprises and exhibitors, increasing scale of the Expo, and increasing expectations. In the symposium for high-level leaders of the Yangtze River Delta areas in 2018, the above-mentioned three provinces and one city signed the Cooperation Agreement for Assured Services in the CIIE Collaborated by the Yangtze River Delta Areas. A successful CIIE needs both Shanghai’s improvement of city management and joint efforts by greater synergy of the Yangtze River Delta areas to smooth its process. And this is also beneficial to promoting the Yangtze River Delta integration. On one hand, we can explore the improvement of system and mechanism of collaborated public security administration in the Yangtze River Delta region, on the other hand, we are able to enhance the pivotal economic effects of the CIIE to the Yangtze River Delta.

Fourth, we should expand the open platform effect of the jointly held CIIE. As a major initiative of building open economy in China, the CIIE builds a bridge for trade investment between countries and demonstrates a platform of exhibition, exchanges, transactions, and cooperation for domestic and foreign purchasers and suppliers. During the first CIIE, the Yangtze River Delta areas have organized a large number of purchasing groups. But due to space and time limits, some willing enterprises and consumption groups are not deeply involved and there is certain lack of diversity and specialty of exhibitions. To solve these problems, the CIIE can further utilize resources of the entire Yangtze River Delta region to increase more participators and greater influences of the CIIE as well as open up new pathways for the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta region. All of these can be realized, through commonly sponsoring the expo by different places and holding exhibitions at the same time, to expand and optimize the spatial layout of the CIIE. For example, we can set up branch venues of special fields in other cities in the Yangtze River Delta region, organize professional forums, and establish display and trade center of import goods in the areas with comprehensive bonded zones and cross-border e-commerce business.

(Li Peixin

Associate Research Fellow

Economy Research Center,

Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences)