Since reform and openness, the eastern coastal regions have developed by leaps and bounds by means of setting up special economic zones, opening up the coastal port cities, initiating economic and technical development zones, and actively importing foreign capital and advanced technology. They have played the part of a driving force in the development of the entire national economy. Between 1979 and 1992, our country's total value of national economic output increased at a rate of 9 percent annually, and the total value of industrial output, at a rate of 13 percent annually. The sustained high speed of China's economic growth was due mainly to the impetus of the rapid growth in the eastern coastal regions. This is a generally acknowledged fact. However, a problem—a fairly serious problem—has emerged in another aspect, and that is the further widening of the development gap between the seaboard and the interior regions.
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Huang Shikeng (1996) studied this question.