Why should the construction of characteristic towns highlight the awareness of problems?
China is a major agricultural country, and all regions have rich and colorful characteristic industries under specific geographical, historical and cultural backgrounds, with obvious advantages in traditional industries such as furniture, straw and willow weaving, coarse cloth, pen making, colored glaze, and ceramics.
Shandong, a major agricultural province, has huge potential for urbanization, and the local area pays attention to combining local conditions and highlighting the creation of characteristic towns supported by agriculture. Some time ago, a research group from the Shandong Academy of Social Sciences took the construction of agricultural characteristic towns as its theme and selected representative specialized towns and villages in Weifang, Qingdao, Yantai, Weihai, Binzhou, Heze and other places for on-site research.
Overall, the construction of agricultural characteristic towns in Shandong is still in the preliminary exploratory stage. The survey found that town construction shows some characteristics, for example: it mainly relies on the traditional industrial foundation of "one town, one product" or "one village, one product," and focuses on cultivating and strengthening characteristic industries; the main builders are mainly village collective economic organizations and leading enterprises; the concept of large industrial clusters has been incorporated into construction, and the key to the sustainable development of characteristic towns lies in whether characteristic industries can resist industry risks, which in turn depends on the completeness and maturity of the industrial chain; attention is paid to using surrounding natural and cultural landscapes to expand the tourism functions of towns; and local characteristic culture and historical traditions are fully explored and used to enrich the cultural heritage of towns, such as Yangjiabu in Hanting District, Weifang City, which relies on woodblock New Year pictures and kites for tourism resource development.
It can be found that the construction of characteristic towns plays a prominent role in increasing farmers' income and improving the living environment, and an atmosphere of innovation and entrepreneurship is taking shape. For example, Daji E-commerce Town in Cao County, Heze City, has effectively driven local farmers' employment and increased farmers' income by vigorously developing e-commerce; in Wantou Village, Boxing County, Binzhou City, under the leadership of e-commerce pioneers, there are more than 2,000 practitioners of straw weaving e-commerce, and in the past 2 years it has attracted more than 50 college and secondary school graduates to return home and start businesses.
The research found that in the process of building agricultural characteristic towns, Shandong also has some shortcomings. For example: towns based on traditional agriculture have limited early accumulation and insufficient self-generating capacity; the agricultural industry has low returns and high risks, and has limited appeal to private capital; the development of functions such as leisure, tourism and livability in towns requires the construction of supporting buildings and facilities, while non-agricultural land quotas in townships are very scarce; the construction of characteristic towns involves multiple departments, and a project must go through approval by multiple departments, with a long approval cycle; some places have vague understandings, either waiting and seeing, or building according to the standards of "one village, one product" and "civilized village," and most do not treat town construction as a systematic project; the vast majority of towns have problems such as industries lacking characteristics, sectors lacking leaders, resources lacking integration, projects lacking main entities, and development lacking integration; and there is a shortage of talent for the construction of characteristic towns, especially urgently needed talent for comprehensive services and support services on e-commerce trading platforms.
In the future, it is recommended to make targeted improvements and upgrades. First, the impact of characteristic industries should be taken as the most important criterion for selecting characteristic towns. It is recommended to use large relevance, strong driving force, huge real market demand, considerable future demand potential, obvious characteristics and prominent advantages as criteria, and each town should choose one industry with characteristics and a relatively high degree of concentration as its main direction, so that it becomes a major industry supporting its future development.
Second, it is recommended to refer to Zhejiang's approach and emphasize that a characteristic town is not a town in terms of administrative divisions, but a development space platform organically superimposing multiple functions of characteristic industries, culture, tourism, community, and innovation and entrepreneurship, and a new engine of economic development, not seeking to be "large and complete," but only seeking to be "special and strong."
Third, the creation of characteristic towns should uphold the unity of enterprise leadership and effective government action. The key to the vitality of characteristic towns lies in following market laws. Town investment and construction should be led by enterprises, and attention should be paid to introducing leading enterprises that fit the development positioning of the town, giving play to their advantages of strong market networks and strong industrial layout capabilities, and using them to promote the transformation and upgrading of town industries. The government should actively act, play the roles of "guide" and "service provider" well, and promote town construction with supporting services.
Fourth, establish a diversified investment and financing mechanism. Strategic cooperation with financial institutions such as banks, trusts and insurance companies should be strengthened, and financial institutions should be guided to increase credit support for towns. Innovate investment and financing mechanisms, explore the establishment of financing models such as industrial funds, low-cost financing, PPP, and equity crowdfunding, and optimize the allocation of resources across society.
Fifth, innovate fiscal, land and commercial support policies. In addition to fiscal support for the planning and design of characteristic towns and supporting infrastructure, public innovation service platforms may be subsidized according to a certain proportion of their investment, and a certain subsidy may be given to makerspaces in towns. The construction of characteristic towns implements a creation system, encouraging all localities to actively revitalize existing land and use resources such as hills and gullies, abandoned factories and mines, and barren beaches and wasteland.
Characteristic towns are still a new thing in our country. Only by fully understanding their role under the new economic form can they avoid deviating from the intended path in practice. Therefore, efforts should also be made in many aspects, such as strengthening education and training related to the content of characteristic towns, constructing a comprehensive planning system, giving play to the leading role of planning, increasing the training and support for urgently needed talent in towns, and carrying out all-round publicity and promotion, and so on.
In the development and construction of agricultural characteristic towns, the vital interests of farmers should especially be respected and protected. Full consideration should be given to demolition compensation, resettlement, and transfer to other industries or jobs, so as to truly realize the deep integration of "industry, town and people."