Publication: The Urban Development Investment Corporations (UDICs) in Chongqing, China
Loading...
Published
2010-01-01
ISSN
Date
2012-03-19
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
Urban Development Investment Corporations (UDICs) have over the years become the central pillar in the local government drive to build infrastructure in China, where local governments are not allowed to engage in direct market borrowing. UDICs were established during the early 1990s when local governments were under great pressure to both build municipal infrastructure and to reform the role of the government in infrastructure development. The UDIC model provided the local governments with a corporate government structure to borrow from the market and quickly develop infrastructure. They are treated as municipal corporations under the Company Law of the Peoples' Republic of China (PRC). The law does not clarify the relationship between UDICs and the local government, including the limits of the financial liability of the local governments vis-a-vis UDICs. The Government of China (GOC) agencies expect that the World Bank (WB) Technical Assistance Report (TAR), based on the detailed analysis of the financial operations of a selected UDIC in Chongqing, will offer critical technical assistance to the Chongqing Municipal Government (CMG), which can also be shared with other Chinese cities. The GOC agencies realize that this TAR is the first step in the right direction, in that it will specifically address the needs of a reform-minded municipal government and clarify one UDIC model in detail. It is anticipated that similar efforts can be undertaken in the coming years with other reform-minded and high-priority cities that are employing different models of UDIC to finance municipal infrastructure.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“World Bank. 2010. The Urban Development Investment Corporations (UDICs) in Chongqing, China. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/2888 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication An Expressway Development Strategy for Vietnam(Washington, DC, 2008-12)Vietnam's rapid economic growth continues to create new demands for transport infrastructure and services. Bottlenecks to business activities caused by infrastructure constraints are already appearing in several areas. High rates of urbanization, rising traffic accidents, new capacity constraints, and a large increase in asset preservation requirements to meet the fast expansion of transport assets presents further challenges to the sector. To address these infrastructure bottlenecks, and to gradually remove the transport constraints on industry, Vietnam is embarking on an ambitious expressway development program. To date the transport sector has facilitated this growth principally through the rehabilitation and widening of existing arterial roads. The national road network has expanded to 17,000 km, the overall condition has improved with 66 percent of the network being in good and fair condition and 84 percent of the network is now paved. If traffic growth rates continue at their current rate these constraints could adversely impact future economic development. The successful development of an expressway system is a significant physical and financial commitment which will require a number of changes to laws, regulations, institutions and operations of the network.Publication Public-Private Partnerships in Europe and Central Asia : Designing Crisis-Resilient Strategies and Bankable Projects(World Bank, 2011-02-24)This study aims to help governments design sustainable Public-Private Partnership (PPP) strategies and projects in the context of the changed circumstances brought on by the global financial and economic crisis that began in the fall of 2008. The study analyses the impact and implication of the crisis on PPP infrastructure projects across the Europe and Central Asia (ECA) region. In the research undertaken for this study, it appears that most crisis-specific issues are cross-sectoral, therefore requiring cross-sectoral responses. The intended audience for this report includes national government stakeholders involved in infrastructure financing, including Ministries in charge of infrastructure, especially transport, energy, and water; state-owned enterprises with operational responsibilities, such as road directorates; and Ministries of Finance and development banks involved in PPP. This report reviewed the region's experience in PPPs in infrastructure before and during the financial crisis period (from late 2006 to 2010). Since not all ECA countries have had successful or ongoing PPP projects during this time, the report draws on lessons from Brazil, India, Spain, and the United Kingdom, countries with established PPP project pipelines to draw on cross-sectoral lessons. The findings can be used by countries wishing to start or re-start their PPP program following the impact of the recent crisis. However, beyond the crisis and its effects, the report can also guide future development of sustainable and crisis-resilient PPP programs. Most of the analysis supporting the report recommendations was undertaken for the highway sector and was financed through from a grant from the transport research support program. Initially, the highway sector was the focus of this study but the scope was later widened to include all infrastructure sectors because most issues facing highway PPP projects are common to other sectors requiring a cross-sectoral approach to PPP. Sector-specific strategies for highways have been documented in a recent World Bank study.Publication Public-Private Partnerships in Transport(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2007-12)This paper summarizes the evidence on the evolution of transport PPPs over the last 15 years or so. In the process, it provides a primer on the associated policy issues, including of the central role of project finance in the implementation of PPP policies and the debates on risk allocation in the design of PPPs. The paper also offers a discussion of the increasingly well recognized residual roles for the public sector in transport, with an emphasis on the regulatory debates surrounding the adoption of PPPs.Publication Current Debates on Infrastructure Policy(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2007-11)This paper provides an overview of the major current debates on infrastructure policy. It reviews the evidence on the macroeconomic significance of the sector in terms of growth and poverty alleviation. It also discusses the major institutional debates, including the relative comparative advantage of the public and the private sector in the various stages of infrastructure service delivery as well as the main options for changes in the role of government (i.e. regulation and decentralization).Publication The World Bank's Assistance to China's Transport Sector(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2005-04-27)China's economic development since the opening of its economy in the late 1970s has resulted in an eight percent average annual rate of economic growth. Key facets of this growth are rapidly increasing domestic and foreign trade as well as increasing personal mobility and consumption of energy. The deficiencies of the Chinese road and highway system have in particular created a bottleneck in China's economic development. The major objective of the China country assistance strategy (since the 1980s) was to alleviate infrastructure bottlenecks, in providing financial resources and promoting sector reforms in China. In 1997-98, the World Bank worked together with the Chinese government in completing a review of the transport sector and preparing an intermodal transport strategy. The strategy provides proposals for increasing competition and efficiency, identifies the changing patterns of demand for transport, and advances the analysis of investment needs of the sector and their financing.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Sourcebook on the Foundations of Social Protection Delivery Systems(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2020-07-30)The Sourcebook synthesizes real-world experiences and lessons learned of social protection delivery systems from around the world, with a particular focus on social and labor benefits and services. It takes a practical approach, seeking to address concrete “how-to” questions, including: How do countries deliver social protection benefits and services? How do they do so effectively and efficiently? How do they ensure dynamic inclusion, especially for the most vulnerable and needy? How do they promote better coordination and integration—not only among social protection programs but also programs in other parts of government? How can they meet the needs of their intended populations and provide a better client experience? The Sourcebook structures itself around eight key principles that can frame the delivery systems mindset: (1) delivery systems evolve over time, do so in a non-linear fashion, and are affected by the starting point(s); (2) additional efforts should be made to “do simple well”, and to do so from the start rather than trying to remedy by after-the-fact adding-on of features or aspects; (3) quality implementation matters, and weaknesses in the design or structure of any core system element will negatively impact delivery; (4) defining the “first mile” for people interface greatly affects the system and overall delivery, and is most improved when that “first mile” is understood as the weakest link in delivery systems); (5) delivery systems do not operate in a vacuum and thus should not be developed in silos; (6) delivery systems can contribute more broadly to government’s ability to intervene in other sectors, such as health insurance subsidies, scholarships, social energy tariffs, housing benefits, and legal services; (7) there is no single blueprint for delivery systems, but there are commonalities and those common elements constitute the core of the delivery systems framework; (8) inclusion and coordination are pervasive and perennial dual challenges, and they contribute to the objectives of effectiveness and efficiency.Publication Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21)This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.Publication World Development Report 2008(Washington, DC, 2007)The world's demand for food is expected to double within the next 50 years, while the natural resources that sustain agriculture will become increasingly scarce, degraded, and vulnerable to the effects of climate change. In many poor countries, agriculture accounts for at least 40 percent of GDP and 80 percent of employment. At the same time, about 70 percent of the world's poor live in rural areas and most depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. World Development Report 2008 seeks to assess where, when, and how agriculture can be an effective instrument for economic development, especially development that favors the poor. It examines several broad questions: How has agriculture changed in developing countries in the past 20 years? What are the important new challenges and opportunities for agriculture? Which new sources of agricultural growth can be captured cost effectively in particular in poor countries with large agricultural sectors as in Africa? How can agricultural growth be made more effective for poverty reduction? How can governments facilitate the transition of large populations out of agriculture, without simply transferring the burden of rural poverty to urban areas? How can the natural resource endowment for agriculture be protected? How can agriculture's negative environmental effects be contained? This year's report marks the 30th year the World Bank has been publishing the World Development Report.Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.Publication Investing across Borders 2010(Washington, DC, 2010)Investing Across Borders 2010 (IAB) presents cross-country indicators analyzing laws, regulations, and practices affecting foreign direct investment (FDI) in 87 economies. The indicators focus on 4 thematic areas measuring how foreign companies invest across sectors, start local businesses, access industrial land, and arbitrate commercial disputes. The indicators combine analysis of laws and regulations, as well as their implementation. They explore differences across countries to identify good practices, facilitate learning opportunities, stimulate reforms, and provide cross-country data for research and analysis. The project's methodology is based on the World Bank Group's Doing Business initiative. The IAB indicators draw on data collected through a survey of lawyers, other professional service providers (mainly accounting and consulting firms), investment promotion institutions, chambers of commerce, and other expert respondents in each of the countries measured. Between April and December 2009 more than 2,350 experts in 87 economies responded to the survey to provide data for this report. This chapter presents the report's main findings including examples of FDI competitiveness-enhancing practices for each indicator area. It also provides key results for each region. IAB does not measure all aspects of the business environment that matter to investors. For example, it does not measure security, macroeconomic stability, market size and potential, corruption, skill levels, or infrastructure quality. Still, the indicators provide a starting point for governments seeking to improve their competitiveness in attracting foreign investment.