China′s rare earth industry has shown its strong competence, but notably this competence is mostly based on the comparative advantages in natural resources and production costs that will not provide a long-term momen...China′s rare earth industry has shown its strong competence, but notably this competence is mostly based on the comparative advantages in natural resources and production costs that will not provide a long-term momentum for the growth of the industrial competitiveness. It has become an urgent task now for China′s rare earth industry to improve its competitiveness through adjusting the product structure and enhancing the technological application, to gain much healthier and more sustainable growth in the future. This paper aims to present a new development strategy based on the industry cluster theory to improve the competitiveness of China′s rare earth industry with a case study on the emerging rare earth industry cluster in Baotou. The paper first reviews the cluster theory and explains why it matters to industrial competitiveness briefly, and then proposes a general framework for implementing cluster policies and strategies in practice. Following that, a case to study the emerging rare earth industry cluster in Baotou was presented and a cluster initiative based on the general framework was developed. The objectives of the cluster initiative and the role of government on initiative organizing and cluster upgrading were discussed in detail. In the end, general implications drawn from the case of Baotou were summarized, which try to provide some insights for applying cluster-based strategies to the rare earth industry of China.展开更多
文摘China′s rare earth industry has shown its strong competence, but notably this competence is mostly based on the comparative advantages in natural resources and production costs that will not provide a long-term momentum for the growth of the industrial competitiveness. It has become an urgent task now for China′s rare earth industry to improve its competitiveness through adjusting the product structure and enhancing the technological application, to gain much healthier and more sustainable growth in the future. This paper aims to present a new development strategy based on the industry cluster theory to improve the competitiveness of China′s rare earth industry with a case study on the emerging rare earth industry cluster in Baotou. The paper first reviews the cluster theory and explains why it matters to industrial competitiveness briefly, and then proposes a general framework for implementing cluster policies and strategies in practice. Following that, a case to study the emerging rare earth industry cluster in Baotou was presented and a cluster initiative based on the general framework was developed. The objectives of the cluster initiative and the role of government on initiative organizing and cluster upgrading were discussed in detail. In the end, general implications drawn from the case of Baotou were summarized, which try to provide some insights for applying cluster-based strategies to the rare earth industry of China.
