Editor's noteWith the arrival of the Year of the Dragon, 2023 is a thing of the past. As we bid farewell to the old and welcome the new, we start with the hot people in 2023 or ordinary people in the hot industry, look at the economic situation of the past year through the perspective of the series of characters, and foresee 2024 from it.
Chapter 6 High-speed Rail
At 8:01 a.m. on December 26, 2023, the D9958 train departed from Longyan Station to Wuping, and the Longyan to Wuping section of the Longlong High-speed Railway, which took 4 years to build, was officially put into operation. Since then, Wuping, the former Soviet district and county, and Wuping, the old revolutionary base county, have ended the history of not being connected to the railway, and western Fujian has realized the "county-to-county railway". A reporter from Beijing Youth Daily noticed that the biggest feature of the Longlong Railway is that it connects a series of county-level economies in western Fujian and northern Guangdong. China's railway construction has shifted from the construction of trunk lines to the construction of branch lines, and the "county-to-county railway" is an important feature of this transformation. A reporter from Beijing Youth Daily noticed that many high-speed rail projects that had been shelved in various places have been restarted since the second half of last year. The relationship between railway construction and the county economy is getting closer and closer, what impact will the "county-to-county railway" bring to the county economy? How to unfold the financial game behind the establishment and direction of high-speed rail stations?
The majestic and magnificent Meizhou Bay Bridge of the Fuzhou-Xiamen high-speed rail high-speed rail train bridge passes through the picture Visual China.
From the paradise to the back garden of Xiamen
On February 8, 2024, after arriving in Xiamen from Beijing, a reporter from Beijing Youth Daily took the C9624 bullet train back from Xiamen, and 1 hour and 52 minutes later, the bullet train arrived in Wuping County, a place where it had departed.
Wuping Station. In the age of the Internet, news about hometown always touches the hearts of wanderers. At the beginning of the Year of the Dragon, the opening of the high-speed rail is undoubtedly the biggest news in this small county, ** seen in the circle of friends and the AI precise push of major platforms. When the railway was not open, it took nearly four hours to travel from Xiamen to Wuping, and it would take longer if you had to change trains, and the railway cut this time in half. "The opening of the high-speed rail is a spatial reconstruction for the small county, and in an hour and a half of high-speed rail time, the small county town is upgraded to a suburban county of a super city. Wuping will be more closely connected with the Xiazhangquan economy, and Wuping will be transformed from a paradise into a back garden. A Xiamen scholar from Wuping told a reporter from Beiqing Daily.
Zhong Xiaoming, a practitioner of Wuping tourism industry, believes that the opening of high-speed rail is also a major benefit to the county-level tourism industry. "Many tourists come from Xiamen, Longyan and even Fuzhou to check in. Short-distance family visits and market trips are also becoming more and more common. Lin Zhongxin, director of the Wuping County Bureau of Culture and Tourism, also said in an interview that the opening and operation of the Longyan to Wuping section of the Longlong high-speed railway has further shortened the time and space distance between Wuping and the outside world, which is conducive to the promotion of Wuping's tourism resources and cultural characteristics, and is more convenient for tourists from all over the province to visit, study and travel. It is understood that Wuping County Qianlu Lake and other scenic spots will also introduce a series of preferential measures for tourists visiting by railway. Huang Yongyong, deputy general manager of Fujian Railway, said that after the completion and opening of the Longlong high-speed railway, a "first-class channel" will be added between western Fujian and eastern Guangdong to accelerate the economic and social integration between Fujian and Guangdong. A business person in Wuping County also said that the opening of the high-speed rail will also promote the introduction of the company's talents.
It's not just the Longlong high-speed railway. The Shanshan high-speed railway, which opened almost simultaneously with the Longlong high-speed railway, has also had a significant impact on the county-level economies along the line. Lufeng, the county seat of Binhai, ushered in the era of high-speed rail. According to the "Lufeng High-speed Railway Economic and Industrial Development Plan", Lufeng will rely on the superior position of Konka Semiconductor Industrial Park in the vicinity of Lufeng South Railway Station to build a "10 billion-level" electronic industry cluster in an all-round way. Take the initiative to connect with the high-end electronic information manufacturing industry belt on the east bank of the Pearl River, adhere to the combination of recruiting big and strong and attracting new and high, and make Lufeng electronic information industry cluster bigger and stronger. During the opening of the high-speed railway, Shanwei City planned and held a series of activities and measures to regulate the order of the cultural and tourism market, and promoted Shanwei's high-quality cultural and tourism resources, real estate resources and investment environment.
High-speed rail promotes the county economy to become a topic of discussion in various places
The role of high-speed rail in promoting the economy along the line has also been recognized by local party and government cadres, and many places and citizens have called for and run for the "high-speed rail dream".
Zhang Lihua, secretary of the Wuping County Party Committee, said at the opening of Wuping Station: "In the next step, we will vigorously promote the construction of the Wuping to Meizhou section of the Longlong high-speed railway, quickly set up the 'best channel' from Wuping to the Greater Bay Area, and strive to build a counterpart cooperation model of 'old area + Bay Area'." "The 2023 Wuping County ** Work Report also looks forward to the opening of high-speed rail to boost Wuping's economy. The report mentioned that the Longlong Line has fulfilled Wuping's century-old dream of high-speed rail: "'High-speed rail is passed, and the horse is successful'." Wuping is striding into the fast lane of high-quality development. ”
Schematic diagram of railway network planning in Fujian Province (2021-2050).
It's not just Wu Ping. A reporter from Beiqing Daily noticed that at this year's local two sessions, many deputies to the people's congress and members of the CPPCC from the county level cheered for the local "high-speed rail dream". During the two sessions of Shandong Province, Xi Yuling, deputy to the Shandong Provincial People's Congress and chief engineer of Shandong Qinchi Liquor Industry, brought suggestions on further improving the transportation of the Yimeng Revolutionary Base Area and accelerating the planning and construction of intercity railways between counties. Xi Yuling suggested that the planning and construction of intercity railways between Linqu County of Weifang City and Yishui County of Linyi City, Yiyuan County of Zibo City and other counties should be accelerated, and the traffic conditions of the Yimeng Revolutionary Base Area should be improved, so as to provide convenient transportation conditions for the high-quality development of the local economy and society. Peng Fangjian, deputy to the Provincial People's Congress and magistrate of Pingjiang County, brought the "Proposal on Requesting Support for the Inclusion of the Changjiu High-speed Railway Project in the Medium and Long-term Railway Network Planning (2022-2035)", requesting the state to support the inclusion of the Changjiu High-speed Railway in the national "Medium and Long-term Railway Network Planning" to set up a station in Pingjiang and start construction in a timely manner.
In an interview with relatives and friends around him, a reporter from Beiqing Daily learned that Lichuan County, Fuzhou City, Jiangxi Province, has also been looking forward to the high-speed rail project for a long time. The county is located in the southeast of Jiangxi, adjacent to Fujian. On January 22, 2024, Lichuan County*** said in response to questions from citizens that the Changxia (Fuzhou) high-speed railway, as an important part of the Beijing-Hong Kong (Taiwan) corridor, the main channel of the national high-speed railway, has been included in the "Jiangxi Province New Era Medium and Long-term Railway Network Plan (2021-2035)".
The "traffic" delivery behind the Internet celebrity city
In 2008, China's first high-speed railway with completely independent intellectual property rights, the Beijing-Tianjin Intercity Railway, was put into operation, marking China's official entry into the era of high-speed rail. In just a few years, China's high-speed rail construction has made remarkable achievements. By 2023, the operating mileage of China's high-speed rail will exceed 3790,000 kilometers, accounting for more than 70% of the total mileage of high-speed rail operations in the world. Nowadays, China's high-speed rail has entered the era of "county-to-county high-speed rail".
High-speed rail has brought huge dividends to local economic development. Some cities have catapulted to become major economies with the help of high-speed rail. Throughout the country and abroad, large railway hubs are usually built into sub-centers and gateways of cities to develop high-end commercial, tourism, eco-residential and leisure services. How to transform the dividends of high-speed rail into capital dividends, information dividends, technology dividends, and industrial dividends has also become an important issue for economies around the world in the era of high-speed rail.
Ji'an, Jiangxi: The sea of rape flowers is golden and the high-speed train is heading for "spring" Figure Visual China.
In fact, when the high-speed rail officially opened, it ushered in three cross-era changes: the change of time and space, the change of resource view and the change of development view. Zibo in Shandong and Harbin in Heilongjiang, two Internet celebrity cities that exploded last year, attracted countless tourists to check in, and there were also many local cultural tourism systems to study and investigate. However, various analysis reports ignore one point, which is the traffic transmission of high-speed rail behind these Internet celebrity cities.
College students take the high-speed train to Zibo to eat barbecue" once dominated the hot search list. On March 4 last year alone, more than 50,000 people arrived at Zibo Railway Station in one day, setting a record in the past three years. This winter, going to Harbin for an ice and snow appointment has become a vacation choice for many city citizens. This year marks the 3rd anniversary of the completion of the Beijing-Harbin high-speed railway. Three years ago, the Beijing-Harbin high-speed railway was completed in its entirety, and there was a high-speed railway in and out of the northeast with the shortest time, which paved the way for Harbin to become an Internet celebrity-level tourist city.
The game of station setting up and operating
While high-speed rail has brought "energy" to many places, there are also some problems that are gradually emerging. Some of the completed and unused high-speed rail stations have been abandoned or shelved, and the stations with an investment of millions to hundreds of millions have become "ineffective infrastructure".
In July 2023, the Danzhou Haitou Station of the Hainan Island High-speed Railway, with an investment of more than 40 million yuan, has been completed for many years but has not been put into use, causing heated discussions. Hainan Province then replied that the province took a variety of ways to communicate and negotiate with the railway department in an all-round way, but the railway department believes that the main reason for the current restriction on the opening of Haitou Station is: the daily passenger flow of Haitou Station is less than 100 people, and the railway department has suffered serious losses after the opening of operation. The situation of Haitou Station is not unique, the Wanning Hele Station of the Hainan Island High-speed Railway, the Shenyang West Station of the Beijing-Harbin High-speed Railway, the Danxi Station of the Danda Express Railway and the Guangningsi Station are all in a state of completion and not being put into operation, mainly due to the small passenger flow.
The issue of station establishment and operation needs more attention in the future construction of high-speed rail. During the interview, a reporter from Beiqing Daily learned that some places have placed a lot of hopes on high-speed rail. As the most basic economic and political organization in China, county-level economies not only have the demand for economic development, but also respond to the demands of social voices, and are also the defenders of fiscal balance. An expert in the field of infrastructure pointed out that in the direction of high-speed rail and the establishment of stations, local ** has a certain right to speak. The right to speak is often directly proportional to the proportion of capital contribution. In this case, some financially wealthy regions, cities and counties have more say in the establishment of high-speed rail stations. However, after reaching the operation stage, the railway department took into account factors such as train speed and passenger flow demand, and gave fewer trains to small stations in some fourth- and fifth-tier cities, which led to a vicious circle of further reduction in passenger flow, and some stations were even closed down after completion.
"County-to-county railway" has become an important theme of high-speed rail construction. Localities, especially counties, are playing an increasingly important role in this. How to clarify the direction of high-speed rail construction under the condition of limited financial resources is a question worth considering.
On the eve of Chinese New Year's Eve, Nanjing Railway ushered in the peak of passenger flow Figure Visual China.
Half two observations
How to play the "high-speed rail" card well
As soon as the train rang, "10,000 taels" "If you want to get rich, you must first build roads". Railway, the strongest reference material for China's realistic narrative for more than 100 years, carries the century-old dream of several generations. China's railways have now entered a new era of "county-to-county high-speed rail". "County-to-county railway" has become an important theme of high-speed rail construction.
At about 10 o'clock in the morning of February 12, a reporter from Beiqing Daily left Wuping for Xiamen on D3132, and his thoughts were full of thoughts on the speeding train. Like most counties in China, the old district of Wuping is under economic and financial pressures. It may take another three to five years before the economic benefits that high-speed rail will bring to this ancient county town will become clearer. From a certain point of view, high-speed rail is a double-edged sword for the local economy. Some people say that "once the high-speed rail is passed, the horse will be successful"; Some people also say that "as soon as the high-speed rail passes, people go to empty buildings". After the opening of high-speed rail in some small and medium-sized cities in China, affected by the "siphon effect" of large cities, not only did not introduce industries, factors and enterprises, but intensified the hollowing out of industries and population. There is some truth to both of these claims.
Whether high-speed rail can drive the upgrading of a local industrial chain depends on whether the location, development foundation and strategy of each small and medium-sized city can adapt to the requirements of the division of labor brought by high-speed rail. When making the big dish of "high-speed rail", all localities need to be soberly aware that high-speed rail itself cannot determine the development of a local economy. Iron striking also needs its own hardness, and the background color of the local economy itself is more important.
In addition, on January 9 this year, China Railway Group revealed at the all-road work conference held that in 2023, the national railway will complete the investment in fixed assets of 764.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 75%。After three consecutive years of decline, the investment in railway fixed assets has finally bottomed out. Rail investment in 2023 is the highest in nearly three years. From 2021 to 2022, the railway investment will be 748.9 billion yuan and 710.9 billion yuan respectively. From the data, it can be seen that China's railway investment is still at its peak, but it is already the stage of checking and filling in the gaps. This suggests that the relevant parties need to look at the issue of high-speed rail construction rationally, and also need to look at it from the perspective of macroeconomic and domestic cycles such as cycles.
Text: Beijing Youth Daily reporter Zhu Kaiyun.
Edited by Field.
In addition to the signature, this article was photographed by Beijing Youth Daily reporter Zhu Kaiyun.
【Copyright Notice】The copyright of this article (including the right of information network dissemination) belongs to Beijing Youth Daily, and it is not allowed to be unauthorized **