Regional Economic And Social Development Of The Role Of Local Government Studies

Since the start of reform and opening up, China experienced gradual transition from theplanned economic system to socialist market economic system. In this process, the country’seconomic and social development has made great progress,283cities presented their differentregional development status and development characteristics, and local governments at the citylevel played an important role. At present, facing the task of comprehensively deepening reform,we should serious think and study how to further promote the transformation of localgovernment functions and give full play to its positive role on the basis of summarizing theexisting rich development experience.Based on the situation of Dongying City, and through in-depth study and analysis of thelocal government’s role in the development of agriculture, industry, service sectors and socialundertakings such as education, healthcare and social security over the past three decades, thefollowing conclusions were drawn from a macro perspective: first, local government plays animportant role in leading and promoting a region’s economic and social development. From thepractice since the reform and opening up policy was initiated, one can see local governments, asa regional political support system, have become an important leading force in regionaldevelopment. For many areas, local governments play an important guiding and promoting rolein fields such as industrial layout, resource integration and allocation, regional developmentorientation, major projects introduction and relations coordination. Second, the ability tocorrectly deal with the problems of overlapping departments underlies the healthy developmentof regional economy and society. Under the current system, each region in our country has theproblems of overlapping departments and complex and interrelated relations between them,which directly affect the healthy development of the region’s economic and social development.Whether local governments can play a leading role in streamlining and integrating theoverlapping departments is vital for regional economic and social development. Third,well-functioning local government should be good at positioning its functions, adapting to timesand innovating as needed. In different historical periods and different stages of economic andsocial development, local governments is also facing various situations and tasks, which leads todifferent priorities and a series of known and unknown risk factors. A good local government,therefore, must be good at adapting to changes, follow the times, find its own orientation, clarifypriorities in different periods; good at self-disciplining and innovation, based on realizing the region’s long-term development, safeguarding social fairness and justice, serving the people andleading the region in its efforts to realize the comprehensive, balanced and sustainabledevelopment of economy and society in the spirit of reform and innovation.In the study and analysis of local governments’ positive role in economic and socialdevelopment, this paper also discovers its main problems: lack of distinction between thefunctions of the Party and those of the government; government functions are too broad; thelocal governments’ decision-making mechanism is yet to improve; the market economy lacksvitality; local protectionism; absence of some public service functions, etc. According to the newsituation and requirements of our country’s reform and opening up efforts, this paper putsforward the following countermeasures to better perform the functions of local governments: one,clarify the relations and functions of the Party and those of the government; two, improve thedecision-making mechanism, and ensure scientific and democratic decision-making; three,cultivate the market and activate the market economy; four, actively innovate local governments’functions in social services and administration.