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Bring out the linkage between a good transport system and efficiency within 500 words?

Answer 1

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Home > Vol 5, No 3 (2010) > Sloboda

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Notice: This HTML version is intended only to facilitate reading. If you want to quote the paper, please use PDF version, which contains page numbers.
The Relationship Between Transportation and Economic Development: The Yangtze Region
Brian W. Sloboda [1], Cynthia Haliemun



INTRODUCTION

The rapid economic growth of China since the beginning of the economic reforms in 1978 has received much attention from economists and policy-makers throughout the industrialized world. China has experienced rapid economic growth since the beginning of the economic reforms in 1978. In terms of economic size, China is surpassed today only by the U.S., Japan, Germany, and France.[2] Despite the global economic crisis of 2008, the Chinese economy managed 8.7% growth in GDP in 2009, and much of this growth in GDP can be attributed to the stimulus package passed by the Chinese government.[3]

In all economies, the expansion of output is the sum of the growth of consumption[4] plus investment plus net exports of goods and services. In the case of China, the expanding investment has attributed to the growth of China’s economy. For China, investment averaged 36 % of GDP in the first decade of its economic reforms, relatively high by the standard of developing countries generally but not in comparison with China’s East Asian neighbors when their investment shares were at their highest. Since the beginning of the 1990s, China’s investment rate has trended up. In 1993 and again in both 2004 and 2005, investment as a share of GDP reached 43%, a level well above the historic experience of China’s East Asian neighbors in their high-growth periods.[5]

Because of this rapid economic growth, China has also become a major participant in the global economy. In fact, many foreign investors have also invested heavily in the different regions of China especially in the central and western areas. Many foreign firms are looking in these areas to expand their operations because of its lower costs of production. However, once these goods are produced, there needs to be a comprehensive transportation system to allow in the ease of the shipment of goods. The Yangtze River is an effective multimodal form of transportation that will allow for an easy transport of the good to the domestic and international markets. Because of the multimodal advantages of the Yangtze River, the Chinese government has invested in the enhancements of the infrastructure of the Yangtze River in order to improve its transportation system. In fact, for the budget allocations for 2009, the Chinese government set aside Rmb103.5bn for roads, Rmb73.2bn for railways, Rmb24.2bn for airports and Rmb10.3bn for the Yangtze waterway. The objective for these enhanced transportation projects are to connect rural villages to urban areas in the interior provinces which is part of the government’s Go West initiative.[6]

In fact, there is a large population based in the Yangtze region which contributes immensely to the GDP of China.[7] Since the immense investments into the transportation system in the Yangtze region have attracted investors to the region, these investments had led to the economic growth of this region and for China. In fact, the economic growth of the Yangtze region has exceeded the economic growth of Korea, Taiwan, and other industrialized Asian countries.[8]

In this paper, we look at the effects of the implications of the transportation and economic development in the Yangtze region. Additionally, the balance of this paper is as follows: a review of the transportation and regional economic development, the initial development in the Yangtze region as spawned by the economic reforms by the Chinese government in the 1970s and early 1980s, the implications of infrastructure investments in the Yangtze region and its regional economic development, and the final section provides final thoughts and conclusions.

Answer 2

Good transport system facilitates the transport of the commodities from the industry to the market or facilitates the intake of the raw materials to the industry. This streamlines the activities in the production process thus making the production process quite efficient. Efficiency means fast and in an expected manner to ensure that the products are of good quality and quantity.