Foreign trade and investment in Guangxi: A comparative analysis

Guangxi’s geographical location in the Southwest region of mainland China has resulted in its delay of economic modernization until 1992, compared to those coastal provinces in the southeast. In order to stimulate its economic development, Guangxi has to enhance its foreign trade, including border trade, with neighboring countries and to introduce and utilize foreign direct investment from abroad for its infrastructures and manufactures. In analyzing the case of Guangxi, this paper tries to make a comparison between Guangxi on the one hand and Guangdong and Yunnan on the other, and then to find the different patterns in the process of their economic development in terms of their structures of foreign trade and foreign direct investment. This paper also addresses the issue of central-local relations by explaining the disruption of a planned economy in mainland China and the decline of central government in regulating local economic activities. She received her MA degree from The City University of New York. Her major research interest is in provincial and regional economic development in mainland China. Currently she is working on a project of state-owned enterprises in mainland China. Her recent publications include “The Pattern of Guangdong’s Foreign Trade: An Analysis,” Mainland China Studies, Vol.41, no.2 (February 1998) and “Regional Economic Integration and Yunnan’s Foreign Trade,” Mainland China Studies, Vol.41, no. 5 (May 1998).