Different Institutions, Distinctive Trajectories? Revisiting Maritime Industrial Development Areas with Cases on China's Liaoning Coast

Abstract

Maritime industrial development areas (MIDAs) are spatial tools designed to accelerate economic growth in backwards coastal areas and thus alleviate regional disparities, and they have widely expanded in both developed and developing countries over the past sixty years. This paper reviews the global development of MIDAs in different historical periods and compares them with cases on China's Liaoning coast in terms of their structure, location, administration, national political‐economic climate and theoretical justification. The results indicate that although those countries have different institutional environments they seemingly once took the same path in their specific stages of development. However, the experiences of developed countries and other developing ones and the current dilemma of MIDAs in coastal Liaoning together demonstrate that MIDAs cannot achieve the policy targets anticipated by decision makers, especially during the economic transitions of China. This finding cautions backwards countries and their lagging areas, such as northeastern China, that the traditional pattern tried by the first developed countries may not be appropriate when the development tool (e.g., MIDAs) is examined in both the framework of international comparison and the socioeconomic setting of a specific country.

Socio-economic impacts of a maritime industrial development area (MIDA) model in Latin America: the case of the Açu Port-Industrial Complex

“…Maritime industrial development areas (MIDAs) are spatial tools designed to accelerate the economic growth and alleviate regional disparities in coastal areas throughout the world (Wang et al 2018 ). Industrial complex development in most of the seaports worldwide has been driven by a combination of technological and institutional developments, and the sites where these complexes of industrial seaport were located are known as MIDAs (Kuipers 2017 ).…”

“…Industrial complex development in most of the seaports worldwide has been driven by a combination of technological and institutional developments, and the sites where these complexes of industrial seaport were located are known as MIDAs (Kuipers 2017 ). Due to the combination of ports and industry, MIDAs are generally regarded as important instrument to promote the industrialization and as growth poles to foster regional development (Wang et al 2018 ). These areas comprise large backport sites to meet the concept of port industry, reflecting a close relationship between ports (i.e., shipping) and industry (i.e., manufacturing).…”

“…The availability of new facilities and technologies, together with relative low costs for feedstock and energy, has led to a competitive advantage of MIDA-type petrochemical complexes from 1950 to 1960s in the ports of Western Europe and Japan (e.g., Vigarié 1981;Wang et al 2014;Kuipers 2017). However, the effectiveness of MIDAs is highly sensitive to government policies and global economic conditions (Wang et al 2018;Chen et al 2019).…”