Themed Ten Green Ecological Industries in Gansu and High-quality Development along Yellow River, the 2019 Lanzhou Summit was held on 28 December 2019 with the aim of exploring and coming up with new understandings of the ten green ecological industries in Gansu and new measures to drive the high-quality development of the area along the Yellow River, thus to better serve the local economic and social development with academic research. Hosted by Lanzhou University, organized by School of Management and LZU Center for Enterprise Innovation, co-organized by China Research Center for Government Performance Management and Gansu Dadiwan Cultural Communications Limited, the summit has gathered about 500 scholars, entrepreneurs and officials.

Professor Sha Yongzhong, Vice President of Lanzhou University, delivered a welcome speech at the opening ceremony. In his speech, Prof. Sha introduced the relevant policies Gansu has made in recent years to promote the ten green industries and focused on interpretation of the important instructions given by President Xi Jinping towards implementing the strategy of ten ecological industries during his visit to Gansu Province. Lanzhou University, he said, has implemented a series of important measures in recent years providing intellectual support and talent guarantee for the green development of Gansu and will continue to give full play to its advantages in academic research and talent intelligence with President Xi’s ecological civilization ideology as guidance and focusing on ten ecological industrial strategy, contributing to the high- quality development of the province and help Gansu walk out a development road that has characteristic and intension.

Professor Bao Guoxian, Honorary Dean of LUSM and Director of Lanzhou Summit, welcomed the participants on behalf of LUSM and gave a speech titled A Clear Growth Strategy and A Good Business Environment Are Two Pillars of Gansu's Development. He mentioned that 2020 will be the year of completing the process of building a moderately well-off society in all aspects, the end of the 13th five-year plan and the decisive year for achieving the first Centenary Goal, which means, Gansu, especially entrepreneurs and governments have to face the situation and try to break through. He said that the overlay of opportunities such as the strategy opportunity of development campaign of the western regions, the opening opportunity of the Belt and Road initiative, the policy opportunity of rural vitalization strategy, the market opportunity of accelerating the transfer of eastern industries to the west, and the region opportunity of accelerating ecological protection and high-quality development along the Yellow River, plus the latecomer advantage after learning experience from others have formed the basis and potential of Gansu’s development. But to achieve a sound, rapid and sustained high-quality development, strategy and policy support are needed, and more importantly, Gansu has to persistently adhere to reform and opening-up, constantly activate and release the vitality of market players, protect and develop entrepreneurship spirit. He believes that Gansu need to think and practice from the aspects of a clear growth strategy and a fine business environment.

Professor Yu Jianxing, Cheung Kong Scholar, Dean of School of Public Affairs, Zhejiang University delivered a speech on The Innovation and Development of Local Governance in Contemporary China. Prof. Yu introduced the rise and development of local governance in contemporary China and pointed out that, the innovation of local governance, as a significant part of national governance, is a global topic, and the basis of the prosperity of a country. There are two models in local governance in contemporary China: “design experiment model” and “independent exploring model”. Since the reform and opening up, the two models have been adopted at the same time and have formed a complementary relationship. Prof. Yu focused on analyzing a new model coming up in the process of the innovation of local governance, which is “ask for instructions and authorization”. The model has deepened the people-centered development idea and involved more players in local governance, which has made the inside government more integrate. Prof. Yu believes there’s much to do in the innovation of local governance in Gansu. Gansu has a latecomer advantages of learning, imitating governance experience and recreation of which. The possible innovation points, Prof. Yu thinks, is the exploring of relationship between capital city and edge cities, providing governance intelligence for central - border relations, providing a test of Chinese scene for the theory of management range, autonomy, rule of law, rule of virtue, grass-roots governance and local religions governance. Prof. Yu stressed that digital technology has become an important tool of local governance, which is the most visible change in contemporary Chinese local governance, and the key area where Chinese experience leads global local governance practice.

Mei Xinyu, economist and researcher at Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation made a speech titled "New Orientation of China, New Development of Gansu". He pointed out the dilemma of Gansu's economic development: Gansu's per capita GDP has fallen to the bottom of all provinces in the country and when all the other provincial capital cities have seen a rise in permanent population, Lanzhou has shown a downward trend. He suggested to look for Gansu’s position in China's global positioning. Gansu, in China's new positioning, should give full play to its geographical, cultural and resource advantages, find out the development direction, explore development opportunities, optimize industrial layout, and innovate and develop traditional manufacturing industry, resource industry, culture and tourism industry and corridor economy. Gansu must seize the new hope brought by the Belt and Road initiative, build the channel first and then seek the landing of the industry, take advantage of China's "infrastructure maniac" infrastructure to bind the trade logistics of the neighboring countries, and innovate and develop two-way channel economy with Gansu's geographical advantages. Mr. Mei stressed that Gansu should have a sense of urgency, step out of the dependence on the state's super strong transfer payment, constantly improve business environment and invigorate economic development. When the mind has changed, the road becomes wide. Gansu should aim high and make unremitting efforts.

Professor He Wensheng, Dean of LUSM, released the 2019 Industrial Development and Management Evaluation Report of Gansu Province. The series of reports include "Performance Evaluation Report of Gansu Provincial and Prefectural Governments Based on Government Website Information: 2019", "Evaluation Report of Financial Budget Governance Ability of Gansu Local Government's ", " Report of Green Development Index in Gansu Province", "Report of Governance Ability of County-Level Governments In the Western Region - Investigation and Analysis Based on Government's Performance of Legal Functions", " Research Report on Industry Innovation and Development of Cultural Tourism Industry of Gansu Province in the New Era" ," Research Report on Independent Supply of Grassroots Public Cultural Services In Gansu", "Research Report on Construction of Commanding Heights of Gansu Hub Under the Belt and Road Initiative", “Report on the Green Development Path of Small and Medium-sized Real Estate Enterprises in Gansu: Management Issues, Transformation Strategies and Strategic Solutions” and “Research Report on Rural Grassroots Governance in Gansu”. The 9 reports focus on government performance evaluation, green development, government governance, cultural tourism industry, building of Gansu hub under the Belt and Road initiative and the development of small and medium-sized enterprises which have provided important academic basis for Gansu's local governments and enterprises to make decisions.

Prof. He has also provided some ideas and suggestions for the ten green ecological industries in Gansu and high-quality development along Yellow River. He believes that innovation drive is the only way to promote the ten green ecological industries and high-quality development and the most urgent task is to free the mind, gather consensus on reform, change thinking pattern, expand thinking space and activate the whole social vitality. Gansu, from individuals, enterprises, social organizations, and governments, should have a thorough conceptual update. Only by enabling society, industry, enterprises and individuals with innovation can Gansu "break out of the cocoon". Gansu need to learn how to build momentum, take advantage of opportunities, scheme them, and find its best strategic positioning in the uncertain environment.

Background

Lanzhou Summit was first held by LUSM and Bank of Gansu in 2014. It has been successfully held for five years, and has become a high-end platform with great regional influence that focuses on the development of Gansu Province and the growth and innovation of enterprises in Gansu. The summit aims to gather wisdom and resources of all parties, discuss major issues in Gansu's economic and social development, and provide intellectual support for Gansu's comprehensive deepening reform, high-quality and sustainable development by promoting active cooperation among universities, enterprises, governments and all sectors of society.

In recent years, party committee and government of Gansu Province have made a decision to develop ten ecological industries, clearly proposing to cultivate and develop clean production, energy conservation and environmental protection, clean energy, advanced manufacturing, cultural tourism, channel logistics, circular agriculture, traditional Chinese medicine, data information and military civilian integration, to do which, Gansu has to take high-quality development as the general direction and keynote of the main task of insisting on development in the new era, take the construction of ecological industry system as the main direction, integrate the concept of green development into all fields of economic and social development, and strive to promote the transformation of development mode to green, low-carbon, clean and safe, so as to fundamentally ensure the sustainable development of Gansu's economy and society from the source. In August 2019, President Xi Jinping gave full affirmation to the implementation of the "ten major ecological industries" during his visit to Gansu, and made important instructions on "strengthening ecological environmental protection and striving to build a national ecological security barrier in the west".

In order to implement the spirit of President Xi’s important instructions and speech, closely around the strategic deployment of the ten major ecological industries by the party committee and government of Gansu Province, the theme of the 2019 Lanzhou Summit was indentified. The summit has discussed the issues related to the ten green ecological industries in Gansu and the high-quality development along the Yellow River, made suggestions of building a "Gansu Model" for beautiful China construction and green development. It will help Gansu accelerate the process of green development, and make due contributions to the ecological environment protection and comprehensive management of the Yellow River Basin.