Assessment of Natural Resources in the Western Region: Guidelines and Policy Recommendations Chen Duochang and Gu Peiliang (School of Management, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072) Systematic analysis and evaluation: Land, water, and clean energy are local resources in the west but do not have practical advantages; in the current system of resource property rights Next, petroleum, natural gas and rare earth mineral resources are state-level resources, coal is a quasi-local resource, and general minerals are local resources in the west. Whether or not mineral resources can become the dominant local resources in the west depends not only on the type of mineral resources, but also on the market demand for mineral resources and the innovation of the property rights system of mineral resources.

With the signing of the "Four Major Projects" in succession, the development of the western region was officially launched in 2001. However, there are still phenomena in the academia and western local government departments that have one-sidedly exaggerated the advantages of natural resources in the western region. This is not conducive to formulating strategies for the economic development of the western region according to local conditions. Scientifically appraising the natural resources in the west and seeking the institutional conditions for the formation of the advantages of natural resources in the west are of great significance for guiding the development of the western region.

I. Criteria for the assessment of natural resources in the Western Region () “Prospering the land and enriching the people”: The starting point for the evaluation of natural resources This is determined by the goals of the Western Development Program. At the turn of the century, the central government's goal is to promote rapid economic growth in the western region through the development of the western region, reduce the widening gap between the economic development levels of the eastern and western regions, and safeguard national unity and national security. Therefore, "prosperity and prosperity" is not only an economic goal for the development of the western region, but also a basic starting point for evaluating the resources conditions in the western region. For example, for some particularly important mineral resources, although it is located in the western region, its ownership and development and management rights are mainly monopolized by the central enterprises, and the development income of the resources is mainly attributed to the central government. Therefore, it is a nationally advantageous resource. Not suitable for the assessment of the advantages of resources for the western region.

Property Rights and Market Demand: Two Criteria for Resource Evaluation 1. Property Rights Criteria. Different natural resource property arrangements have different degrees of effect on regional economic development, and they must be paid attention to when evaluating regional advantageous resources. (1) Resource ownership. For example, China’s oil and natural gas resources are owned by the state. Therefore, when evaluating whether resources have advantages, we should not only consider the country’s land area and population to calculate the resource density and per capita occupancy, but should focus on resource ownership scope or resources. Benefit area. If the per capita storage of oil resources in a certain place is calculated in order to determine the predominant resources in the area, the basis is insufficient. For example, when calculating per capita energy reserves in a region, the population data of the administrative districts where the resources are used are used, and this calculation exaggerates the advantages of energy resources or the so-called “resources”. [1 (2) Resources development and utilization rights and income rights arrangements. The institutional arrangement of resource development and utilization rights and income rights is also an important institutional factor that influences whether the resource becomes an advantageous source of resources.

If a mine has ownership that is not owned by resources and its development and utilization benefits are left to local governments and people, this resource is not an advantageous resource in the region. On the contrary, the development income of pastures, cultivated land, forests, and barren hills of local residents is mainly attributed to local governments or residents, and thus can be used as local resources.

2, market guidelines. Any kind of natural resource, whether it becomes an advantage must consider its market demand and market competitiveness, which in turn is determined by the market supply cost of resources. Such as oil resources, if the international market oil landed at lower prices, the oil resources will not constitute regional resources.

2. Assessment of Natural Resources in Western China Natural resources include natural endowments such as land, mineral resources, light, heat, and water. According to the two criteria mentioned above, we now select several categories of what people commonly think of as the “dominant natural resources in the west” for analysis and evaluation.

(1) Land: The western region has non-dominant resources but the western region has a vast land area, but the area of ​​high-quality land suitable for economic activities is small. Its sparse population cannot say that there is insufficient land for movement. For example, the per capita land area in Xinjiang and Tibet is as high as 9.77 hectares/person and 51.40 hectares/person respectively, while the area of ​​farmland suitable for agricultural production is only 0.24 hectares/person and 0.15 hectares/person. Taking into account the fact that there are many poor and mountainous areas in the southwest, serious shortage of water in the northwest, and the continuous deterioration of the agricultural ecological environment, the land available for economic use in the west is not as abundant as it is usually advertised. Not only that, because of the poor location conditions in the west, the high cost of transporting land-intensive products to reach the domestic market in the east or accessing the international market via the sea in the east leads to a significant weakening of the market competitiveness of their products. Taking Xinjiang as an example, the average transport distance of outbound goods is generally as high as 2,000 to 3,000 kilometers, and the transportation cost per unit of product is high, which will greatly weaken the market competitiveness of Xinjiang products. Xinjiang cotton standard level per ton of freight plus sugar processing and various transaction costs, the actual price per ton higher than the 700 yuan in the mainland provinces and regions, the mainland cotton processing plant is unwilling to use Xinjiang cotton. It can be seen that Xinjiang cotton has a quantitative advantage but no market advantage.

(2) Wind energy and solar energy: local resources with potential advantages The western wind energy is mainly distributed in Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, and Gansu, and has abundant reserves. In Inner Mongolia alone, the total wind energy reserves reached 1.01 billion kW, and 80% of the region has the economic value of wind energy development.

Solar energy is mainly distributed in the northwest and the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. The total solar radiation in the two regions reaches 5400~648CMJ/m2.y. The western region also has other favorable natural conditions for the development of solar energy resources. First, most of the western regions are arid regions, with a lot of sunny days and long sunshine hours. The annual sunshine duration in the southeast of Tibet, southern Xinjiang, eastern Qinghai and Ningxia reaches 3,000-3,300 hours. The annual sunshine intensity is 5.86X105~6.70X105J/cm2.y. Second, the western part is desert and semi-desert, developing solar energy. The required large area shielding conditions can be satisfied. Therefore, the development of solar energy in the western region has broad prospects.

The development and utilization of solar energy and wind energy resources in the western region have the following outstanding advantages: First, it is a type of clean energy, and there will be no or little environmental pollution during the development and utilization. Second, it is suitable for scattered distribution points of power generation equipment, which can be widely used in sparsely populated areas. Third, it can effectively replace conventional energy sources such as petroleum, coal, and firewood forests. Fourth, its development and operation are mainly based on the production and living needs of resources. Therefore, compared with fossil energy, the development and utilization of wind energy and solar energy can directly serve the goal of “prospering the land and enriching the people”.

The unfavorable factor in the development of western wind energy and solar energy is that the current development costs are too high and do not have price advantages. Taking wind power as an example, at present, wind power in Xinjiang is 0.698 yuan per kilowatt-hour and coal power is 0.32 yuan; in Inner Mongolia, wind power is 0.713 yuan and coal power is 0.35 yuan. Although China's Shangming County is rich in its land resources, it reflects that its suitable aM-lish system does not establish a carbon tax on coal-fired electricity, and it does not have market competitiveness for wind power and other clean energy sources. Therefore, wind power does not have market competitiveness. Therefore, wind energy Has not yet become an advantageous resource in the western region.

There is a huge difference between North and South in the distribution of water resources in the western region.

Calculated by the amount of arable land, the average water resource per hectare in northwestern China is 16,680 m3, and the average area in southwestern China is 92,400 m3. 4 The southwest region is rich in hydropower resources and is suitable for the development of hydropower projects. Because the economy of the Southwest is relatively backward and the capacity of the hydropower consumer market in the region is limited, it needs to be brought up in large quantities. This is an important reason for the West-East electricity transmission. It must be noted that long-distance transmission from the West to the East will inevitably lead to an overcommitment of its delivery, which will reduce Xideng’s market competitiveness and weaken the advantages of its hydraulic resources. The water resources in the northwest region are very poor, which constitutes an important constraint for the economic development of the northwest region. Therefore, ignoring the differences between the North and the South in the Western Region, it is said that the abundant water resources in the West are incomplete.

Focus on the western three types of minerals: fossil energy, rare earth minerals and general minerals.

1, fossil energy. Including coal, oil and natural gas resources.

Only the northwestern region has coal reserves of 309 million tons, accounting for 30% of the country; oil reserves of 511 million tons, accounting for 23% of the country's total land-based oil reserves; natural gas reserves of 4354.4 million m3, accounting for 58% of the country's total land-based natural gas reserves. The quantitative advantage of fossil energy in the western region is indisputable.

At present, China’s mineral resources compensation fee is divided into five parts by the central and local governments, state-owned resource compensation fees are rent-based, and rent is a representative of ownership. Therefore, in terms of ownership, China’s mineral resources are “central and local. The government's communal system. "Oil and gas resources have long been monopolized by central enterprises; coal resources have been mined locally (local state-owned, collective, individual, etc.), and also by central enterprises. Central enterprises develop energy to serve as the country's overall economy. Target services do not focus on the development of local economies, and it is obvious that if energy development in a region is mainly controlled by central enterprises, and mineral resource revenues are not mainly allocated to resource lands, they should be evaluated as national resources rather than According to the local resources, under the current system of resource property rights, the western oil and natural gas are mainly national resources, and coal is a kind of “quasi-local resources”.

Western energy assessment should also consider market competitiveness factors.

After China's accession to the WTO, the supply channels for energy and mineral resources will be greatly expanded. The use of international markets to obtain cheap, high-quality energy will be an inevitable choice for China’s energy policy. This will enable the eastern region to analyze the current international oil costs of the western energy and mineral resources. The cost of extracting crude oil in the region is about US$2, while China is US$13.3/barrel. With the abolition of crude oil import tariffs, at the beginning of 2000, the cost of imported oil to the factory in China was already roughly equivalent to the domestic land oil cost to the plant, and domestic oil is not competitive with imported oil. Relatively fragmented oil reserves in western regions, poor geological conditions, and shallow oil layers will undoubtedly increase the cost of exploitation of western oil and weaken its resource advantages. Therefore, the comparison of western petroleum resources in the international oil resources market is not only a local advantage resource in the west, but also a national advantage resource. The coal and natural gas reserves in the west are very abundant, but the huge cost required for long-distance transportation will greatly reduce the market competitiveness of these two resources. Making an institutional arrangement to make more use of fossil energy on the ground will be a rational choice for changing the country's disadvantaged resources into the local advantageous resources in the west.

2, rare earth minerals. The western rare earth metal ore is mainly stored in Baotou, Inner Mongolia. In Inner Mongolia alone, the retained reserves reached 84.59 million tons, accounting for more than 90% of the country's total and 70% of the world's total reserves. The long-term reserve of 85 million tons accounts for 85% of the country's total, accounting for 76% of the world's total. Rare earth resources have obvious quantitative advantages. However, whether it constitutes a comparative resource advantage in the western region still depends on the property rights institutional arrangements and market competitiveness of the resource.

(1) Arrangement of rare earth resource property rights. Before the 1980s, the development of rare earth minerals had been monopolized by central enterprises. After the reform and opening up, private capital gradually involved in the development and utilization of rare earth. This shows that the property rights system of rare earth mineral resources monopolized by central SOEs has been undergoing a revolution, but the basic pattern of the development and utilization of rare earth minerals led by state-owned capital has not changed. It should be recognized that the development of rare earth minerals has indeed brought about some practical economic benefits to local governments and people, but the damage it causes to the local ecological environment cannot be ignored. The exploitation of rare earth minerals has greatly damaged the ecological environment. The ability of the western economy to develop sustainably. According to relevant information, there are currently 22 rare earth smelting and separation plants in Baotou, of which 19 have no environmental treatment measures and produce a large amount of waste water, steam and slag during the production process. On average, each production of 1 ton of rare earth oxides will produce 6. 30,000 m3 of waste gas containing sulfuric acid and hydrofluoric acid mist, 200 m3 of acid-containing waste water and 1.4 tons of radioactive residue. [7] The essence of severe environmental pollution caused by the development and utilization of rare earths is the erosion of the development enterprise's interests in the property rights of residents of resource areas. This situation shows that in the absence of environmental protection constraints, from the perspective of local interests, no matter what kind of enterprise is developing and using rare earth resources, it is not an ideal property rights system arrangement. The ideal property rights system arrangement should at least include a reduction in dependence on the source of the AC. Take oil as an example. According to the international energy ftbMl Rare Earth Development, the rash benefit is damaged: the economic compensation of residents. (2) Market competitiveness of rare earth resource products. Excessively dispersed export operations have damaged the competitiveness of China's rare earth resources in the international market. Since 1995, the world's demand for rare earth market has been strong, which has stimulated the blind development of rare earth enterprises in China. In the first half of 2001, the national rare earth smelting production capacity exceeded 180,000 tons, while the world demand was only 7 to 80,000 tons during the same period. Excessive domestic production capacity has caused product backlog and low price competition. The excess production capacity of domestic rare earth products and the vicious competition of multiple entities in the export operation of rare earth products have seriously damaged the market advantages and national economic interests of China's rare earth resources. Therefore, for special minerals such as rare earths, which are absolutely monopolistic in China, their development and utilization can be diversified under the control of state-owned capital, but export operations are more suitable for unified management under state control. (3) Comprehensive evaluation. Rare earth minerals are state-level advantageous resources that are stored in the west. Their irreplaceable value in high-tech and defense industries, as well as the technology-intensive, capital-intensive, and talent-intensive nature of development and utilization and environmental governance determine their suitability. If there is a state-owned capital monopolistic operation, the excessive entry of foreign capital and private capital will make the value of this strategic resource impaired. Therefore, based on national interests rather than local interests, such resources are the country's dominant resources rather than the western ones.

3, general mineral resources. Including potassium, magnesium, nickel ore.

Qinghai Salt Lake contains a large amount of minerals such as potassium ore and magnesium, among which, the reserves of potassium salt account for 97% of the country; the reserves of nickel and platinum metal ore in Gansu account for 62% and 57% of the country respectively. Potash mine is mainly used as civil chemical industry, such as the production of potash fertilizer. The development and utilization of this mineral can make a greater contribution to the development of local economy. Compared to rare earth minerals, potassium minerals are more reason to be evaluated as local resources in the west. However, due to the narrow restrictions of the local market in the west, general minerals need to be brought up in large quantities. Many inconvenient factors, such as inconvenient transportation and location away from the geographical location of the Eastern Processing Zone market, have determined that such minerals have not become an advantageous mineral in the West.

Third, the policy recommendations 1, the land belongs to the local resources in the west, a large quantity but poor quality. Locational disadvantages have weakened or even lost the market competitiveness of its land-intensive products. The comparative advantages of land resources in the west cannot be overestimated.

2. Solar energy and wind energy resources are local resources with “potential advantages” in the west.

3. In fossil energy, both mineral resources in the national sense and to a large extent superior resources in the west depend not only on the actual market conditions but also on the institutional arrangement of resource property rights. (1) From the perspective of resource ownership, development and management rights, and income rights arrangements, the western oil and natural gas resources are evaluated as state-level mineral resources. Western natural gas has a number of advantages, but the western region is not a major consumer market in China. Long-distance eastward transmission has reduced its resource advantage. Based on the comparison of international energy market prices, the eastern region can appropriately choose the supply of imported energy, and the western region can more locally absorb local energy sources. This will not only benefit more western regions through the processing and transformation of western energy sources, but also reduce the excessive dependence of the eastern region on domestic energy sources to a certain extent. (2) The development and management of coal resources has achieved the pattern of joint participation of central and local enterprises. Therefore, relative to oil and natural gas resources, the development of coal resources has a more direct effect on the local economy. Due to remote locations and high transportation costs, the market competitiveness of western coal is relatively weak, which has caused it to lose some of the eastern coal consumption market. Therefore, the development of coal in the west should mainly focus on meeting the development needs of the west itself or sending energy through energy conversion. Overall, coal resources can be used as a general advantage resource in the western region.

4. Rare earth minerals are the country's advantageous resources. Although the development of rare earth resources can increase the revenue of local governments, promote the urbanization of resources, and provide business opportunities for the development of local auxiliary industries, due to the important strategic value of rare earth minerals and the absolute monopoly of China's rare earth minerals in the international market. From the perspective of maximizing national interests, this kind of national strategic resources has not been used in the past and will not be suitable for the planning of local resources in the west.

5. Under the institutional arrangements that the country collects mine rents and develops management rights to localities, the general mineral development revenue can be left to the local areas. At present, the development of general minerals in the west is moving toward this institutional arrangement.

6. The distribution of water resources in the western part of the country is a “north-north of Nanfeng” pattern: it is an advantageous resource in the southwest, and a natural factor that restricts economic development and human activities in the northwestern region.

1. The legal facts of mineral resource countries cannot be changed. The institutional arrangement of mineral resources development rights and income rights has become a decisive factor in whether resources can obtain more economic benefits from resource development.

This article believes that the following types of institutional arrangements for the exploitation and utilization of mineral resources are of different significance for realizing the goal of enriching and enriching the people: (1) Central enterprises: Local governments can obtain resource taxes (except for offshore oil resources tax, other resources Taxes are divided into systems) Value-Added Tax (divided into 25% for localities) Mineral Resources Compensation (Central and provincial governments, municipalities and municipalities that have West-friendliness, and mine-producing resources, etc.). Governance divisions include: business tax and other riks (t) local state-owned enterprises: In addition to taxes and fees that are required to be paid by central enterprises, local state-owned enterprises are subject to local finance. (3) Local private enterprises: The main taxes paid are the same as those of local companies, but The employment of labor resources in arranging resources directly contributes to increasing the income of local residents and accelerating poverty alleviation in resource-rich areas.Obviously, under the current resource-return allocation system, the development and utilization of mineral resources by local state-owned and private enterprises is more conducive to realizing prosperity and enrichment of people. However, this does not deny the significance of the development of mineral resources by the central government for the national economy, and does not deny it. The necessity for central SOEs to monopolize some strategically-relevant mineral resources, and if only considering the utilization efficiency of resources, the decision to enter the resource development field should not be a capital form, but should be a non-capital factor such as the level of technology and the scale of capital; Considering national interests, the central government should strictly control the export of resource products; considering the principle of social fairness in resource development, government departments should establish and supervise the implementation of mandatory corporate environmental cost accounting rules to compensate for the damage of resource development to local residents' property rights.

2. The policy implications discussed above are that although the mineral resources stored in the west are owned by the state and the disposal rights of the local governments are very limited, but under the premise of ensuring the overall efficiency of resource utilization and national strategic interests, the ownership of state-owned resources can be adopted. The right to dispose of the right between the central government and the government of the resource area, or the rearrangement of resource capabilities such as resource development and utilization rights, income rights, etc., will turn the disadvantages of the national resources into western resource advantages. For example, under the premise of not changing the ownership of the country under the ownership of resources, the representative of ownership of general mineral resources is defined as local governments; while the important mineral resources are monopolized by the central enterprises, the central government can establish with the government and people of the resources. A benefit-sharing mechanism that transfers part of the proceeds from the use of rare earth resources to resource sites to support the economic development of the resources. Specific methods such as increasing the rent level of mining rights and assigning a larger proportion to local governments and increasing the resource tax are divided into percentages or all of which are returned to the local fiscal and the central corporate income tax part, and the introduction of environmental taxes and local taxes is increased. The place of VAT is divided into proportions, etc.

3. Objectively understand the role of natural resources in stimulating regional economies, and actively cultivate the institutional environment that supports regional economic take-off. Natural resources are the natural endowment or initial condition of regional economic development and are one of the basic conditions that determine the division of labor in the regional economy. However, this premise is established on the premise that resources are in possession of resource property. Rich natural resources are certainly a favorable factor for a region, but natural resources are by no means a sufficient condition for the economic take-off of the region. They are not even necessary conditions. This can be supported by the fact that Zhejiang Province, where there is a serious lack of energy resources, can also develop a strong and specialized regional economy. The factors that affect regional economic development are diverse, and capital, systems, human capital, technology, and market opportunities are all important supporting conditions for the regional economy to take off. Exaggerating the role of natural resources in the take-off of regional economies is detrimental, and the one-sided exaggeration of regional natural resource advantages is even more undesirable.

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