ABSTRACT
The Yangtze is 6,300 kilometers long and is the largest river in China and the third largest in the world. It flows across China's middle mainland from southwest to the east before emptying into the East China Sea. The Yangtze valley region linked into the outside world after the Opium War treaty and was a cradle area in Chinese modern times industrial civilization. This intra-regional unevenness becomes even sharper in terms of per capita GDP. By this measure economic growth was seriously unbalanced between the upper, middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze. In addition, main cities alongside the Yangtze will and should play a role in terms of absorbing Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and stimulating the growth of the regional economy. In general, economies of the Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces and Shanghai municipality at the lower reach of the Yangtze are relatively advanced, and their development levels are high.
