CHANGE OF REGIONAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT POLICY IN CHINA

After 40 years of painstaking work, much improvement has been made in regional difference. The road of that development, however, is by no means a smooth one, full of setbacks and failure. The past forty years may be roughly divided into four stages: 1.a stage of rehabilitation and large scale transition towards the interior( 1949-1959), 2. the dispersion stage with an emphasis on the construction of the interior (1960-1977), 3. a stage of moving back to the coastland and relative concentration of constructions of large scale industries (1978-1980), and 4. a stage of taking the coastland as the focal point for regional development (since 1981). Since the late 1970s, China began to carry out what is known as the Open-door policy. Great changes have taken place in regional development policy.