Pioneering Economic reform in China's Special Economic Zones

Capital & Class, Autumn 2001 by Lau, Raymond W K

Several years ago, there was a debate in China over the value of keeping preferential policies for Shenzhen (and other SEZS). One point of view was whether or not Shenzhen had generated economic benefits sufficient to repay capital investment drained from the rest of China. Previous studies of the issue have been made for the `Bos.This is one area which the book can contribute to, but does not. Shenzhen has signally failed to transfer technology. It also has probably failed so far to repay the state's capital investment in it. But has it 'pioneered' market-orientated economic reforms for the rest of China, and if so, to what extent? (E.g. Shenzhen has a stock exchange, but it opened for trading seven months after Shanghai's). Despite the book's title, this potentially fruitful area is not explored.

In its favour, the book does offer a handy collection of some statistical data in relation to certain issues of general interest. But a journal article with a shorter lead time suffices for the purpose. The book's data cover variously up to 1989 or 1995 only. Had the author's dissertation statistics been up-dated for the book's publication?

Raymond Lau teaches at the City University of Hong Kong.