Abstract:

The overseas economic and trade cooperation zone of China has become an important platform and spatial strategy for the country to implement the “going out” strategy and “the Belt and Road Initiative.” On the basis of summarizing the characteristics of China’s overseas economic and trade cooperation zones, this study analyzes the development mode of the Vientiane Saysettha Development Zone in Laos and reveals the advantages and disadvantages of the zone from the perspective of enterprises through a field research and an in-depth interview. The research findings are as follows: 1) the Vientiane Saysettha Development Zone is a typical project developed in the form of “project construction + land compensation”, whose development orientation is in line with Laos’ conditions and needs; and 2) the advantages of this zone conclude superior political status, strong tax incentives, and obvious geographical advantages, while the disadvantages are an incomplete industrial chain system, difficulty in overseas financing, weak local grounding, insufficient cohesion between enterprises, lack of labor resources, and lower labor skills and efficiency. This study also discusses the enlightenment of this case on China's foreign investment research and overseas economic and trade cooperation zone construction. We specifically propose that research in relevant fields should focus on three aspects, with the first aspect being the location selection and industrial layout of China's overseas economic and trade cooperation zones. Aside from considering optimal profit, lower cost, rich resources, and market, the location preference of China’s overseas economic and trade cooperation zones sometimes shows other accidental factors, such as the case herein involving the Vientiane Saysettha Development Zone. A systematic investigation and an in-depth analysis on the location selection mechanism of China’s overseas economic and trade cooperation zone, a special outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) mode, must be conducted to enrich the theoretical and empirical research on the OFDI location selection. The second aspect is the local embedding mechanism of China's overseas economic and trade cooperation zones. Economic geography scholars should give full play to the geographical advantage of performing field research combined with a global production network analysis framework and methods of social network analysis, identify the different roles and interactive relations of government, enterprises, and non-governmental organizations in the implementation of foreign trade and economic cooperation zones, understand how specific overseas economic and trade cooperation zones under a specific political and economic structure are embedded in the host country's system and economic and social relationships, which is helpful in reducing enterprise overseas investment risks; and provide some guidance for promoting the smooth development of China’s foreign economic and trade cooperation zone. The third aspect is the economic and geographical impact of China’s overseas economic and trade cooperation zones. With regard to the exploration of the impact and mechanism of overseas economic and trade cooperation zones on China’s transfer of excess capacity, the investment environment, industrial development, labor market, and other aspects of the host country are urgent issues, which economic geography scholars should pay attention to. Understanding these issues will be helpful in understanding China’s ongoing economic transformation and regional spatial reconstruction to some extent. From a practical point of view, we believe that strengthening intergovernmental consultation and meeting the development needs of the host country are the keys to ensuring the smooth development of China’s overseas economic and trade cooperation zones. Moreover, promoting vocational training for local labor is a fundamental way of solving the host country’s labor problems faced by overseas economic and trade cooperation zones.

Key words: outward foreign direct investment, overseas economic and trade cooperation zones, Vientiane Saysettha Development Zone, China, Laos