Liaoning only reported growth of 1.9 percent in Q1, the slowest in the country. Industrial added value, fixed asset investment and foreign trade, all fell in the first four months.
"Since last year, we have bid on 60 projects, and been successful on only one. We are living off our own fat," said Yao Yongke, general manager of Dalian Shipbuilding Industry Offshore. The demand for offshore oil rigs, previously a jewel in Liaoning's economic crown, has shrunk sharply as international oil prices have fallen.
Liaoning has launched 274 major construction projects since the beginning of last year with a huge total investment. Officials and entrepreneurs alike in Liaoning are clamoring for reforms to reduce government intervention in business operations.
PROSPECTS
While policies such as interest rate cuts help, China's real economy will gain more momentum from the Belt and Road initiative, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei integrated development, the Yangtze River economic belt and free trade zones than from administrative reform.
A brand new factory built by China Railway Rolling Stock Corp. (CRRC) began making trains in April, but in Malaysia. It is the first step overseas for China's rail equipment manufacturers. The importance of this shift from simply exporting products to establishing manufacturing bases overseas using Chinese technology, services and money should not be underestimated.
International cooperation in industrial capacity is an area where China's existing expertise could prove invaluable, but free trade zones are showing a strong propensity for attracting foreign investment.
At the end of May, just over a month after they opened for business, Guangdong, Tianjin and Fujian FTZs had attracted 7.8 billion yuan, 11.7 billion yuan and 3.2 billion yuan respectively, accounting for 45.3 percent, 69.4 percent and 53.6 percent of total foreign investment in their respective regions, according to the Ministry of Commerce.
Boosted by the Silk Road Belt and Road plan, cargo trains linking China and Europe are on the increase. On Tuesday, a 41-container cargo train completed its maiden voyage from Hamburg, Germany, to Harbin in the northeast province of Heilongjiang. A route from Zhengzhou in central China to Hamburg now has two trains in each direction every week. Chongqing and Chengdu in the southwest, Wuhan, Zhengzhou and Changsha in central China, and Shenyang and Harbin, in the northeast, all now have rail freight services to Europe.
Major national strategies can bring huge potential to China's economy. It is now up to China's new army of innovators and entrepreneurs to extract maximum value from that potential.
