Investment patterns of MNCs in development areas of China and their impacts on regional development
跨国公司在开发区的投资模式及区域影响

Globalization force dominated by Multinational Corporations (MNCs) has increasingly been an important factor influencing regional development. In the last two decades, as a result of increasing globalization and fast technological advances, dynamics behind spatial organization of economic activities have been changing very rapidly and hence spatial arrangements of economic activities become more and more complicated. To actively participate in globalization via attracting foreign direct investment and technological transfers, the Chinese government has established various kinds of development areas since the opening up and reform in the late 1970s and provided tax holidays to foreign investors in the development areas as well as domestic investors in the high-tech sectors. By employing the cases of MNCs' investment in the development areas of China, local ties of global production networks (GPN) are analyzed and three patterns, namely, gradual pattern, embedded pattern and following pattern, are put forward. It indicates that the GPN of MNCs have been strengthened through their investments in the development areas of China. Accordingly, the development areas of China can be regarded as the local nodes of GPN. However, in the interest of local development, connections between GPN and local production networks have not been well developed, which should be gained more concern by local governments and administrators.