Tax breaks no longer the best lure for business in Jing-Jin-Ji plan
Experts call for a change of traditional thinking when it comes to attracting businesses and investment to the three-city economic scheme
The mainland should revamp its traditional way of luring business and investment through favourable taxes for the new, so-called "Jing-Jin-Ji" co-ordination plan seeking to link Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei's economies closer, experts say.
Tax policy has played a crucial role in spurring growth in the past few decades for regions such as the Yangtze River Delta centred in Shanghai, or the Pearl River Delta in the south.
Cao Jianhai, a senior researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the South China Morning Post that competing for investment with cheaper taxes were no longer the most favoured option as local governments had been told to chase higher quality growth.
"There needs to be measures to promote a more integrated tax system for the three regions," Cao said. "If this cannot be pushed ahead, Hebei may face great disadvantages" in the Jing-Jin-Ji.
A key lesson mentioned by some Hebei government officials was the move starting in 2005 to move steel refineries of the Shougang Group from the capital to Caofeidian, a coastal area in Hebei about 250km from Beijing, in a bid to help clean Beijing's air and upgrade the capital's industries.
Shougang has been able to keep its high-technology steel-panel facilities as well as services operations in Beijing, where the group is still headquartered.