Digital driver

Looking forward, Dong Xuebing, deputy director of the Research Center for Regional Coordinated Development at Zhejiang University, said the digital economy will serve as a major growth engine.

A pilot program for digital rights confirmation should be quickly built in the region, he suggested. Through the protection of digital intellectual properties, confirmation of rights, anti-monopoly regulations, and industrial policies the region's digital economy can seek sustained growth.

Liu Zhibiao, executive director of the Yangtze Industrial Economic Think Tank, a part of Nanjing University, said companies should be encouraged to build industrial models that suit the integrated development of the region.

Mergers and acquisitions, for instance, should be better supported to achieve this goal. In this way, policy differences can be minimized and international industrial clusters built in the region, which are also outcomes conducive to achieving the country's major strategies, he said.

The Yangtze River Delta region and the Pearl River Delta region are the two major growth engines for China, shouldering great responsibility for the country's sustained development, said Zheng Yongnian, dean of the School of Public Policy at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen.

While China is undergoing the transition from old to new economic drivers — with technological innovation playing an increasingly important role — the country needs to strengthen fundamental research, nurture more transformation of technologies and provide stronger financial support, he said.

Therefore, deeper institutional reform should be conducted and barriers further broken. More autonomy should be given to regions so that they can advance technological innovation in more flexible and efficient ways, said Zheng.