Study On Recession And Refoming Of Germany's Ruhr Industrial Area

The recession of the old industrial zones is a worldwide common problem, especially in the industrialization districts such as Europe and the United States, and the most typical zone is Ruhr in Germany, where used to be the engine of German economy and the European heavy industry base. 50-60 in the 20th century, it has achieved the positive results after the economy declination and the transition, now it still faces slow economic growth, unemployment, low competitiveness of the region, sustainable development, and other issues.Northeast is the leading region which supports national economic growth. After 1949, northeastern region has been developing the largest heavy industry base under the government's strong support. After the Chinese reform and opening up, the economy in northeast region began to recession, and appeared many questions such as unemployment, resource depletion. For these reasons Chinese government set forth the strategy to revitalize the old industrial bases, after many years of restructuring and transformation, China has made certain achievements in this issue, but there are still many problems which has not been resolved. This paper analyzed the entire process of the Ruhr industrial area from its formation and development to decline and restructuring, and studied on its successful experiences and made recommendations for the old northeast industrial bases.The first part of the paper is the introduction; the main topics are introduced about the background and significance of choosing subject, status of this topic, research ideas and methods, and also the framework and some possible defects.The second part of paper is about the recession and restructuring of old industrial area. In the paper, it first analyzed the regional issues and problem regions, and then explained the recession of the old industrial area by using the theories such as the life-cycle theory, the cause-effect theory about cumulative cycle and path-dependency theory. The life-cycle theory has explained the life cycle process of the development in the industrial areas, it helps to explain on surface of the period from formation to recession in old industrial areas, it is just kind of summing up, not the process which any area must to comply.In addition, the life-cycle theory can not explain the reason why many new industries have not been developed during the recession of old industrial areas; the cause-effect theory about cumulative cycle has focused on the internal mechanisms of the declination in old industrial areas, but we can not make conclude that this theory is the common law or common model for all the depression areas. Because the economy growth in the developed regions is not always faster than the regional recession, with the exception of accumulated causal factors, there are other factors which can affect the changes of regional relations, and these factors will produce the important influence on the regional economic development.Path-dependency theory studied on the path-dependent of the old industrial area to history, it appeared the "lock" phenomenon, but the technical path-dependency is also very important. In addition, the path-dependency theory emphasized the issue that system development depends on the initial accident, but the formation and development of the old industrial areas are not out of fortuitous events. Transformations of old industrial areas are mainly based on the industrial restructure theory, regional innovation theory and regional economic intervention theory. Industrial restructure emphasized on the impact of leading industry to regional economic, but it ignored the role of institutional factors during the transition process; Regional innovation theory is about the old industrial area's adjustment and transformation, it is not a simple innovation to business, technology and production factors, but a systemic transformation, we must look for the new develop point of industry to promote industrial restructuring.The third part of paper is about formation and development in the Ruhr industrial area: the formation of the Ruhr area was mainly pushed by the unity of the currency and market, the war, the impact of the industrial revolution, enterprise development, policy and market promotion and labor supply; the reason why the Ruhr area can become the important industrial base in Europe is mainly showed by the coal industry and iron-steel industry.The fourth part of paper is about the reasons for the declination of the Ruhr industrial area, the declination of Ruhr area is exposed by some aspects such as the economic recession, declining population, environmental damage and increasing unemployment, and the reasons for the declination due to the structural reasons, the market reasons, resources reasons and some enterprises'cultural reasons.The fifth part emphasized on the transition in Ruhr industrial area, including the restructuring objectives, policies, economic structure, effect and some problems which still exists. Ruhr area has set a goal during the transition process, but it appeared a conflict with the actual economic performance, so it changed the goal of transition. Ruhr area has practiced the policy such as "re-industrialization", the development of new industries and industrial diversification, and it worked very well, it is mainly reflected by the industrial structure, distribution of productive forces, technological innovation mechanism, the training environment, culture creation, industries tourism and transport infrastructure; after the transition there are still many problems, such as unemployment, the rate of economic growth, the competitiveness of enterprises.The sixth part is about the enlightenment which transformation of the Ruhr industrial area give to the revitalization of old industrial bases in northeast, at first it analyzed the overall situation of old industrial bases in northeast, including the formation process and the mainly problems, and then compared the difference between the Ruhr industrial area and the old industrial bases in Northeast of China, and by the end of the paper it set forth the enlightenment form the revitalization of old industrial bases in northeast. In the overall strategy, we must carry on structural upgrading, innovation strategy, diversification strategy, the new urban strategy and employment growth strategies. In policy aspect, we must have the support from the fiscal policy, financial policy, the personnel policies, and also laws protection. The paper recommended that firstly the government must play leading role to actively promote the transformation of old industrial bases in northeast of China and secondly accelerating to push the innovation of regional economic system and technology must be made; Thirdly we should rely on scientific and technological to recreation traditional industries, the development of new industries; fourthly we need to intensify the infrastructure construction, and create an enabling environment for the revitalization of the old northeast industrial base; fifth is to expand employment channels, to solve the more unemployment problems.