On December 17, the 23rd meeting of the Central Committee for Comprehensively Deepening Reforms reviewed and approved the "Opinions on Accelerating the Construction of a Unified National Market."
The meeting of the Central Deep Reform Commission has always been regarded as the vane of reform.
As soon as the news came out, the "national unified market" immediately attracted attention.
Following the regional economy represented by urban agglomerations and metropolitan circles, the exploration of national integration has quietly begun, and the market may be the first area to be "stabbed".
Build a "national unified market"
Why emphasize
"Urgent need to speed up construction"?
Speeding up the improvement of the domestic unified large market is an integral part of the problem of smoothing the domestic large cycle, and it also plays a pivotal role.
Based on this, we can continue to advance the goals of dual cycles and common prosperity.
——Xing Weibo, Professor of the School of International Economics and Trade, University of International Business and Economics
"National unified market" is not a new term.
Professor Xing Weibo of the School of International Economics and Trade of the University of International Business and Economics has been researching this subject for 15 years.
When first contacted, Xing Weibo was still a PhD candidate at the Guanghua School of Management, Peking University.
In an interview with reporters, he recalled that the focus of the national unified market at that time was how to break the "princely economy", including setting up regional barriers, imposing additional fines, and forming barriers to health education.
Xing Weibo's research found that in the past 20 years, my country has issued a large number of laws and regulations, five-year plans, government work reports, etc., covering a large number of key words about the domestic unified market, preventing market segmentation, and restraining local protection.
For example, policy reforms before 2000 focused on market segmentation in special industries such as automobiles, electricity, and tobacco. After 2000, business environment and negative lists were added to market integration.
"After years of reform, most of the obvious barriers have been broken." Xing Weibo said.
The subtext behind this sentence is: some invisible barriers still need to be broken through.
The reporter noted that the meeting of the Central Deep Reform Commission mentioned that my country's market system still has outstanding problems such as insufficient system rules, poor flow of factor resources, local protection, and market segmentation.
Therefore, the meeting emphasized that it is necessary to focus on system construction, adhere to both establishment and breakthrough, improve market basic system rules, promote high-standard connectivity of market facilities, accelerate the construction of factor and resource markets, promote high-level unification of commodity and service markets, and improve the level of supervision and governance. Effective policy measures have been introduced to continuously improve the uniformity of policies, the consistency of rules, and the synergy of implementation, in order to unify the large market to gather resources, promote growth, stimulate innovation, optimize the division of labor, and promote competition.
At the same time, it is necessary to speed up the elimination of various regulations and practices that hinder a unified market and fair competition.
Breaking down invisible barriers is undoubtedly the top priority of building a "national unified market."
The question is, why does the central government reiterate the "national unified big market" now and emphasize the "urgent need to speed up construction"?
In Xing Weibo's view, in the past two years, my country has proposed a new dual-cycle development pattern, which is to talk about development from the perspective of industrial chain and value chain.
Speeding up the improvement of the domestic unified large market is an integral part of the problem of smoothing the domestic large cycle, and it also plays a pivotal role.
"On this basis, we can continue to advance the goals of dual cycles and common prosperity, because a unified market is a way for all citizens to benefit and improve living standards." Xing Weibo told reporters.
Practice has fully proved that the construction of the new development pattern has enabled the domestic and international markets to achieve better connectivity and better use of the two resources. It not only strongly supports my country to achieve higher quality, more efficiency, more fairness, more sustainable, Safer development has also promoted the prosperity and recovery of the world economy.
Xing Weibo said that the importance of smoothing the domestic big cycle lies in the fact that China's super-large-scale market advantage should first be a unified market with openness, transparency and fair competition.
Constructing a new development pattern based on the smooth circulation of the national economy is actually a strategic choice to reshape my country's new advantages in international cooperation and competition.
As the two "hands" of the unified national market
How to combine efficient market and promising government?
The main obstacle to the construction of a unified market also comes from monopolistic enterprises with market power. They also have the ability to segment the market and must play the role of a unified anti-monopoly law or competition law.
——Liu Zhibiao, Dean of the Yangtze River Institute of Industrial Economics, Nanjing University
In the discussion about the "national unified market", a message was quite sharp: In this market, how will the relationship between the market and the government be different?
This hits the core of the problem: how to handle the relationship between the government and the market in the development of a socialist market economy?
In this regard, the Central Deep Reform Commission’s meeting clearly stated: “Let the market play a decisive role in the allocation of resources and give better play to the role of the government” “Accelerate the transformation of government functions, improve the efficiency of government supervision, and promote a better integration of effective markets and effective governments. , To protect the legitimate rights and interests of enterprises and the safety of people’s lives and property in accordance with the law.”
During the interview, Xing Weibo and Sheng Yi, a member of the Decision Advisory Committee of the Sichuan Provincial Party Committee and Provincial Government, agreed that as the two "hands" of a unified national market, both are indispensable.
On the one hand, the prerequisite for realizing a unified national market must be the decisive role of the market in the allocation of resources.
Xing Weibo mentioned that, for example, some mature consumer product markets such as automobiles must be market-led.
In fact, the market is more sensitive to profit and risk. Using competition, marketing and other means, the market can spontaneously identify demand and induce production, and form a consumption pattern through constant trial and error. This can avoid waste of funds and be more economically efficient.
It is worth noting that since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the Party Central Committee has adhered to the direction of socialist market economy reform. An important task is to reduce the government's direct allocation of resources and reduce the government's direct intervention in microeconomic activities.
But as an ideal resource allocation method, market failure is inevitable.
For example, the production of some public products is necessary. However, due to the high investment risks and long cycles, from the perspective of pure marketization, from the perspective of benefit first, there are not a few companies that are unwilling to produce.
Sheng Yi emphasized that the unified national market does not mean that the government does not have the right to participate. "Where the market cannot play a role, the government also needs to perform its functions."
At this time, the government needs to give full play to its policy advantages, such as granting preferential policies, injecting funds, and encouraging companies to participate in promoting industrial development.
Another example is the digital economy and other new business formats that have been raging in recent years. Without the government's early provision of infrastructure construction and the rule of law and property rights, it will be difficult for the market to break through the early-stage resource allocation problems on its own.
Liu Zhibiao, Dean of the Yangtze River Industrial Economics Research Institute of Nanjing University, pointed out that the main obstacle to building a unified market still comes from monopolistic enterprises with market power, which also have the ability to segment the market, "to play the role of a unified anti-monopoly law or competition law." .
For example, in the power sector, at the Deep Reform Commission meeting held on November 24, it was proposed to speed up the construction of a unified national power market-Xing Weibo pointed out that this is because power is related to the national economy and the people’s livelihood and cannot be adjusted by market forces. It requires necessary state intervention. To achieve better configuration.
Simply put, the relationship between the government and the market mainly involves the definition of the functional boundaries of the two parties, "but it must be clear that the definition of the boundary is not static, but evolves with economic development."
The meeting emphasized that it is necessary to continuously improve the uniformity of policies, the consistency of rules, and the coordination of implementation to unify the large market to gather resources, promote growth, encourage innovation, optimize the division of labor, and promote competition; speed up the elimination of obstacles to the unified market and fair competition. Various regulations and practices.
It can be seen that improving the uniformity and consistency of policies and eliminating the existing rules and regulations that hinder the unified market conveys a clear problem orientation, which is intended to completely eradicate the crux of the formation of the unified market.
The core of the unified national market is to break down barriers
Who will be the forerunner?
The Chengdu-Chongqing region has similar cultures, similar regions, and developed economies.
By exploring the transformation of the administrative region's economy into a regional unified market, we can explore the way for the construction of a national unified market.
This may be another major responsibility of the Chengdu-Chongqing Shuangcheng Economic Circle.
——Sheng Yi, member of the Decision Advisory Committee of the Sichuan Provincial Party Committee and Provincial Government
Some experts pointed out that the regional economy represented by urban agglomerations and metropolitan areas may become the forerunner of the "national unified market."
Sheng Yi believes that the core of the national unified market is to break down barriers, but this does not mean that there will be no obstacles between regions.
This is because the unified big market is a "relative" standard, and some differences between the national big market and the regional market are allowed, and the flow of factors can be completely liberalized in accordance with the requirements of the market economy.
The reporter noted that in the first half of 2021, the Central Democratic National Construction Association's research team was commissioned by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China to go to Hubei, Sichuan, Shanghai and other places to conduct annual key investigations on "formation of a unified market and smooth domestic circulation."
The choice of the three locations is quite meaningful, pointing to the central, western and eastern head cities respectively.
In Sichuan, the research team selected sites including Tianfu International Airport, China-Europe Center and Sichuan Intellectual Property Public Service Platform, China (Sichuan) Intellectual Property Protection Center, and the focus is on the channels facing breakthroughs and free trade in the western region. Districts and business environment.
In Sheng Yi's view, the current proposal to establish "urban agglomerations" and "economic zones" is because of the close regional economic ties, but it is not entirely a simple element and personnel flow. The focus is on strengthening the division of labor and cooperation and improving the efficiency of element resource allocation.
"Note that administrative regions always exist and are relatively stable, while economic relations are not fixed and deepening." He emphasized that it is easier to achieve a unified market in a small area. The key lies in how to break the administrative unit and properly separate economic and administrative regions. .
However, market integration is a "long-term, arduous and complex" task.
Sheng Yi mentioned that reaching a consensus, signing an agreement, and establishing a mechanism are just the first steps, and how to implement the next work.
At present, in Chengyu, the fastest promotion is the integration of the public sphere, because this is included in the government's public functions, and it is relatively easy to implement.
Market integration, innovation integration, and industrial integration involve the self-coordination of enterprises under the competition law and win-win cooperation in the field of competition. There are still many difficulties in implementation.
For example, the integration of industrial development relies more on market mechanisms to coordinate. This requires governments at all levels to make greater efforts to clean up relevant policies and measures that are not conducive to the flow of factors and corporate collaboration in accordance with the needs of market mechanisms.
However, when advancing this aspect of work, because the perceptions of all parties are not completely consistent, there will always be conflicts of interests, which will lead to problems such as slow or inconsistent actions.
For another example, industrial integration requires good infrastructure support, and infrastructure construction projects often cost 100 million yuan. The process of joint construction also involves project approval, fund raising, and construction, and the effect cannot be seen immediately.
"Governments at all levels must establish a'game of chess' thinking in accordance with the requirements of the central government, strengthen economic cooperation, promote a reasonable division of labor, and accelerate the improvement of relevant policies and measures and working mechanisms." Sheng Yi pointed out, for example, exploring the appropriate separation of economic and administrative regions is to establish integration The important work of the mechanism is a big topic. "If the exploration is effective, it will have a guiding and demonstrative effect on the construction of urban agglomerations."
Xing Weibo also mentioned that the construction of a unified national market will inevitably have a multi-level impact on income distribution and resource allocation, which may cause population, resources, and capital to flow to big cities, resulting in the hollowing out of industries in remote areas. .
The solution is to give full play to the comparative advantages of various regions, and at the same time provide support for infrastructure construction and encourage digital economy in relatively underdeveloped regions, and incorporate them into the construction of the national industrial chain.
It is worth noting that the meeting of the Central Deep Reform Commission also clarified the role of regional economy in the “demonstration and leadership” of the national unified market-combining the implementation of major regional strategies and regional coordinated development strategies, and prioritizing the construction of a unified market. Play a demonstrative and leading role.
"Chengdu and Chongqing are culturally connected, geographically similar, and economically developed. By exploring the transformation of the administrative region's economy into a regional unified market, it can explore the way for the construction of a national unified market." Sheng Yi said.
This may be another major responsibility of the Chengdu-Chongqing Shuangcheng Economic Circle.
Chengdu Commercial Daily-Red Star News Reporter Zou Yue