Shuguang Wang

Retail Structure of Beijing

One dynamic and central element in Chinas urban landscape is its retail structure. Yet, little attention has been given to the burgeoning retail sector in the vast literature that relates to Chinas economic reforms. Using the latest census of commercial activity in Beijing and recent empirical work undertaken in the city, we analyze Beijings postreform retail structure and economy. Beijings retail sector has been greatly diversified in both ownership and format. In addition to the emergence of the numerous family-based retailers, private and joint-stock companies now represent a significant part of the retail enterprises—a strong trend towards a market-oriented economy. The presence of many overseas-invested enterprises shows that the Beijing consumer market has been effectively opened to foreign competition and that the Beijing government has a strong desire to continue this trend. The high concentration of retail facilities in Beijing proper is closely related to the urban form. The relative concentration of full-line department stores within the third ring road suggests that new entrants will be better off if they stay away from the inner city and take peripheral locations outside the third, or even the fourth, ring road, in conjunction with development of the newly planned suburban communities.

Foreign retailers in post-WTO China: stories of success and setbacks

This study revisits the foreign retailers in the post-WTO China with two objectives: (1) to analyze the market penetration and performance of the major foreign retailers; and (2) to examine their varying corporate strategies. Market penetration of the foreign retailers has taken place in two directions simultaneously: from the eastern coastal region to the western interior, and from large urban centers to second- and third-tier cities. None of the foreign retailers in China has passed through the complete model described by Dawson (2003) and their levels of market penetration and performance vary greatly. Clearly, the Western retailers, which possess the most resources and advanced information technologies and do business in new retail formats, are taking the lead in penetrating the Chinese market. The Southeast Asian retailers have also expanded with impressive results, but their staying power is unclear. Although the Japanese retailers received the least negative publicity, they have made the least inroad in penetrating the Chinese market.

Development of technopoles in China

Although limited technology transfer among countries has occurred in the past 15 years or so, industrialised countries are unwilling to transfer their state-of-the-art technologies to less developed countries, for both political and economic reasons. As a result, China decided to speed research and development of its own high technologies and commercialise them by establishing in the late 1980s 52 High and New Technology Industry Development Zones. Through these zones achievements of scientific research could be transformed into competitive commodities and a new generation of entrepreneurs and competent managers could be bred. While China’s high technology development zones were modelled on the general concept of technopole, they are not exact duplicates of any of the three types of technopole that have been developed in the Western industrialised countries; they have distinct Chinese characteristics. This study also found that contrary to the popular belief, the high technology zones in coastal provinces as a whole do not perform much better than those in interior provinces. Instead, the majority of the zones that are located in provincial capital cities exhibited above-average performance. This suggests that capital cities in interior provinces can compete well with coastal cities in development of high-tech industries.

CHINA'S RETAIL SECTOR IN TRANSITION

Abstract This paper examines Chinas retail sector with a focus on three major changes in the 1990s: the declining sales performance of key domestic retailers; entry of overseas retailers; and development of indigenous retail chains as a national strategy to modernize the retail industry and there by fend off foreign competition. While the central government approved the entry of only 18 overseas retailers, thousands of overseas-invested retail enterprises operate throughout China, especially in Shanghai, Beijing, Guangdong and Fujian. This raises an important research question: how did so many overseas retailers or investors bypass regulatory barriers to gain entry into the highly protected market? Despite government efforts to revitalize and modernize the retail sector, the majority of the key domestic retailers have been suffering from declining sales since 1996, and the longstanding pattern of geographical variation largely remains, that is, the level of development and the relative importance of the retail industry still decline from the eastern coastal region towards the western region. The declining sales performance of the key retailers cannot be entirely attributed to foreign competition, but it does prompt concern about whether the domestic retail industry would be able to recover if China is admitted into the WTO and more foreign retailers enter.