Study on the Influence of Undertaking Industrial Transfer on the Sustainability Development of Wanjiang City Belt

Abstract

The Wanjiang City Belt is an important part of Anhui’s economic development. It is the core area of the two national strategies regarding the rise of the central region and the integration of the Yangtze River Delta. This paper analyzes the urban development level of the Wanjiang City Belt using a nonparametric test. Holt’s linear trend method of a time series prediction model is used to predict and analyze the GDP growth rate of the second and third industries in the Wanjiang area. The results show that: (1) the economic development level of cities in the Wanjiang City Belt is unbalanced, and there is a significant gap in some cities in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai; (2) the speed of undertaking industrial transfer in the Wanjiang City Belt is slowing down, and the competition of undertaking industrial transfer in the Wanjiang region is increasingly fierce; (3) in the process of the Wanjiang City Belt undertaking an industrial transfer, there are some problems such as the imbalance of undertaking ability, industrial isomorphism and regional competition, which hinder the coordinated development and sustainable economic development of the Wanjiang area. To achieve high-quality and sustainable development of the Wanjiang City Belt, it is necessary to further improve the policy guarantee, industrial cluster, talent introduction and independent innovation.

1. Introduction

Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of present generations without jeopardizing the ability of future generations to meet their needs [1]. To realize the comprehensive and coordinated development of ecology, economy and society is the inherent requirement of China’s sustainable development. To achieve such a development, this must be based on the level of resources in their respective regions, their environmental carrying capacity, socioeconomic development stage and other factors to select an optimal industrial structure. This kind of industrial structure should not only ensure the lowest damage to the ecological environment and the lowest consumption of natural resources but also create as much social wealth as possible to meet the various material and cultural needs of the population in the region to the greatest extent. In order to realize the optimization of this industrial structure, a region needs to eliminate the old industries that do not meet the requirements of sustainable development in the region and introduce new industries that are beneficial to the sustainable development of the region. Therefore, regional industrial transfer can optimize the industrial structure of different regions, achieve the coordinated development of regional economy and promote the realization of sustainable development goals [2,3].

Most urban agglomerations are faced with environmental and resource problems in the process of construction and development, which seriously restrict their sustainable development [4]. In the development process of developed countries, cities such as New York and Paris have experienced industrial transfer and optimized the layout of productivity, thus promoting regional sustainable development. As the world’s largest developing country, China has also formed many urban agglomerations, such as Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH), the Yangtze River Delta, the Wanjiang City Belt and the Pearl River Delta. In recent years, China has continuously optimized the industrial structure and layout of these regions, hoping to achieve their sustainable development and promote the development of surrounding areas. Many scholars have studied the impact of industrial transfer on regional sustainable development. Chen [5] analyzed the influence of industrial transfer on regional sustainable development by discussing the influence path and mechanism of industrial transfer on environmental quality. Tian et al. [6] proposed a new conceptual model of “transferring area-undertaking area-dynamic process” and found that scientific, reasonable and effective industrial transfer can improve the level of industrial agglomeration and promote regional sustainable development. Song et al. [7] used the Bayesian estimation method to empirically analyze the impact of environmental efficiency in the Wanjiang demonstration area and concluded that regional development should combine industrial transfer with enhancing sustainable development capacity.

In January 2010, the State Council formally approved the “Wanjiang City Belt to undertake industrial transfer demonstration area planning”. The Wanjiang City Belt is the first important plan at a national level to promote the rise of the central and western regions and the coordinated development of the region with the theme of undertaking industrial transfer [8,9]. In the “Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration Development Plan” approved by the State Council in May 2016, Anhui Province officially joined the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration, and many cities in the Wanjiang City Belt were also included in the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration. The goal of building the Wanjiang City Belt to undertake an industrial transfer demonstration area is to promote economic development and industrial upgrading. The Wanjiang City Belt has certain advantages in policy support, location advantages and natural resources for undertaking industrial transfer. From 2010 to 2020, the Wanjiang Demonstration Zone has accumulated CNY 6.2 trillion of funds in place for more than CNY 100 million of investment projects, with an average annual growth rate of 16.6%. The regional GDP has continuously crossed the CNY 1 trillion and CNY 2 trillion steps to reach CNY 2556.5 billion, with an average annual growth rate of 9.2%, which is 0.4 percentage points higher than that of the province; per capita, GDP was CNY 85,000, reaching 81.9% of the average level of the Yangtze River Delta region, an increase of 17.9 percentage points compared to 2010. The general public budget revenue exceeds CNY 200 billion, and the comprehensive strength is increasing. In August 2021, the provincial government issued the “Opinions on Promoting the Enhancement of the Development of the Demonstration Zone for Undertaking Industrial Transfer in the Wanjiang River City Belt”. For the Wanjiang City Belt, it should accurately grasp the economic development trend under the new normal and actively undertake industrial transfer to drive regional industrial upgrading and promote regional sustainable development [10].

This study takes eight cities in the Wanjiang City Belt and Jin’an District and Shucheng County in Lu’an City as research objects. It uses nonparametric tests and time series prediction models to study and analyze the urban development of the Wanjiang region and identifies some outstanding problems in the process of taking over industrial transfer in the Wanjiang City Belt and then puts forward policy suggestions to improve the ability of the Wanjiang region to take over industrial transfer.

The structure of the study is as follows: Section 2 reviews the study related to industrial transfer and the comprehensive evaluation studies on the ability to undertake industrial transfer. Section 3 introduces the methodology and data sources. The fourth section analyzes the capacity of the Wanjiang City Belt to undertake industrial transfer and the problems it faces. The last section contains conclusions and recommendations.

2. Literature Review

2.1. Research on Industrial Transfer and Undertaking Industrial Transfer

Industrial transfer is an important economic phenomenon that occurs between regions with different levels of economic development. It refers to the phenomenon that under the conditions of market economy, some enterprises in developed regions respond to the changes in regional comparative advantages and transfer the production of some industries to developing regions through cross-regional direct investment, thus showing the transfer of the industry from developed to developing regions in the spatial distribution of the industry [11,12,13].

Akamatsu has put forward the “geese pattern theory”, which concludes that the development of industries in latecomer countries follows the pattern of “import (taking over transfer)-domestic production (import substitution)-foreign export”. From ordinary domestic consumer goods to capital goods or from low value-added goods to high value-added goods, all evolve in this pattern, showing the efficiency and heightening of production and the tendency to upgrade the industrial structure. Moreover, for a specific product category, this dynamic pattern of evolution is transmitted from one country to another, from the advanced to the advanced countries. This research suggests that product shifts promote industrial upgrading [14,15]. Vernon’s research shows that the evolution of product life cycles triggers the transfer of industries between different countries, which objectively promotes the upgrading of industry structure in both the transferring country and the transferring country [16]. Schmutzler [17] points out that the choice of enterprise location is largely influenced by the product innovation linkage, which drives the replacement and upgrading of industries in different regions. According to Chen Jiwang [18], industrial transfer is accompanied by the flow of capital, advanced technology and management experience, which helps to narrow the development gap between developed and backward regions, while the effect of labor mobility is the opposite. According to Zhang Jing [19], developed regions in China have promoted the upgrading of their own industrial structure with the technological spillover effect of foreign direct investment (FDI). Li Xuxuan [20] pointed out that the less developed regions in the west should combine regional static comparative advantages and dynamic comparative advantages when undertaking industrial transfer and vigorously develop industries with comparative advantages in the future in order to achieve regional industrial upgrading. Liu Chanyan et al. [21] used provincial panel data to dissect the relationship between two-way FDI and industrial structure upgrading in China and found that FDI has a facilitating effect on industrial structure heightening at the regional level. Zeng Peng et al. [22] showed that in the case of Chinese urban agglomerations, FDI and industrial structure promote each other, and FDI and industrial structure promote higher levels of urbanization.

Undertaking industrial transfer means that in the process of industrial transfer, we should take the initiative to do a good job in the regional advantages of connecting the east and the west and linking the north and the south; give full play to resource advantages, huge development space and human resources advantages; actively build a comprehensive reform of the pilot area; seize historic major opportunities to promote industrial agglomeration; and enhance the economic aggregate by improving the economic quality and promoting the process of new industrialization [11,23,24].

The comprehensive evaluation of the ability of regions to undertake industrial transfer and the empirical study of each region is one of the hot spots in industrial transfer research. Ma Tao et al. [25] identified six factors affecting the ability of regions to undertake industrial transfer from the perspective of industrial development, including the economic benefit factors, market potential factors, industrial supporting capacity, cost factors, technology research and development level, and the investment policy environment. It also established an index system for evaluating the undertaking capacity based on the impression factors and sampled the method of principal component analysis to make a comprehensive evaluation of the undertaking capacity of Chinese provinces and cities. Yan An et al. [26] constructed an evaluation index system for the ability to undertake industrial transfer from six aspects: basic undertaking conditions, economic development level, industrial structure and development level, degree of openness and cooperation, technological innovation ability and market attractiveness. They calculated the comprehensive undertaking ability of industrial transfer in the northern Anhui region using the grey correlation method. Gao [27] evaluated the difference in the undertaking capacity of central regions with regard to the specific industry of the textile industry. The evaluation index system was constructed from five aspects: industrial base conditions, production factor conditions, scientific and technological talent support, regional economic strength and transportation facility conditions, and the comprehensive evaluation method used was the entropy value method. Wu Yong [28] included market scale and market potential, production factor costs, infrastructure levels, the level of industrial and economic development of the undertaking area, human capital, policies of the undertaking area and geographical factors in a panel data model of the factors influencing the industrial undertaking capacity of the central and western regions for empirical analysis. The empirical results show that the domestic market size, network communication level and gross domestic product (GDP) are the most important factors affecting the ability of the central and western regions to undertake inter-regional industrial transfer. Geographical factors concern whether the location conditions of the adjacent coastal areas have no significant impact on the regional carrying capacity. Tian et al. [6] proposed a new conceptual model of “transfer area-undertake area-dynamic process” to promote coordinated industrial development and optimal utilization of regional resources.

2.2. Undertaking Industrial Transfer and Regional Sustainable Development

Many scholars have focused on the impact of industrial transfer on regional development from different perspectives, including economic growth, resource allocation, land use and environmental protection. Some scholars believe that industrial transfer can promote economic and employment growth [29] and improve air quality [30]. Chen [31] took Hubei Province in China as an example and analyzed the influence mechanism of industrial transfer on industrial upgrading while concluding through empirical analysis that industrial transfer has a certain promotion effect on industrial structure upgrading in Hubei Province. Wen et al. [32] took the Pearl River Delta Industrial Transfer Undertaking Park as the research object and analyzed the development characteristics of the Industrial Transfer Undertaking Park and its relationship with the ecological environment from the perspective of the impact of industrial transfer on the environment. Zhang et al. [33] took Chengdu as an example to analyze in depth the deep-seated reasons for the difficulties in the sustainable development of manufacturing industries in the Undertaking Industrial Transfer area. Liu et al. [34] used a SWOT analysis to analyzed the sustainable economic development of Hunan Province in the context of industrial transfer. Wang et al. [35] took the demonstration zone of undertaking industrial transfer in the Wanjiang City Belt as an example to construct a regional low carbon development performance measurement index system and used the Super-SBM model and Malmquist index to statically and dynamically measure the efficiency of low carbon development, respectively, and the research results showed that industrial structure is one of the important factors in promoting sustainable development in the Wanjiang City Belt. Mao et al. [36] analyzed and compared the degree of agglomeration and development trends of different industries in China and further provided policy implications for regional industrial restructuring and coordinated regional economic development, as well as the agglomeration and diffusion of regional manufacturing industries. Marginal industry shifts are one way to address the problem of overcapacity [37]. Kenta [38] studied the effect of industrial agglomeration on improving energy efficiency variations from industry to industry. Developed countries such as the US, Japan, Germany and South Korea have used international industrial transfers to resolve overcapacity [39]. However, some scholars believe that industrial transfer will also have gradient traps and industrial upgrading retarding effects [40], aggravate the environmental pollution of the regions [41] and reduce the overall factor productivity of the undertaking regions [42].

3. Study Area and Methods

3.1. Overview of the Study Area

Wanjiang City Belt is being developed in response to national policy planning and is an important strategic choice for national economic development [43,44,45]. According to the changing times, it is conforming to the economic development of the times to make corresponding changes. Wanjiang City Belt contains eight cities in addition to Shucheng County and Jin’an District; in these two areas, the vast area and geographical location is appropriate to undertake industrial transfer development conditions and prospects. The development of urban agglomerations can achieve a reasonable and optimized allocation of resources in a larger range, enhance the radiation and driving effect between cities, and cities and hinterlands, and promote the development of urban agglomerations and the whole region [46,47,48,49]. Wanjiang City Belt industrial transfer demonstration area includes Hefei, Wuhu, Ma’anshan, Tongling, Anqing, Chizhou, Chuzhou, Xuancheng (8 cities) and Lu’an City, Jin’an District and Shucheng County. One axis is the main center line to undertake industrial transfer and refers to the five cities along the river, namely, Wuhu City, Tongling City, Chizhou City, Ma’anshan City and Anqing City, as shown in Figure 1.

This central axis is distributed on the main stream of the Yangtze River, with abundant shoreline resources and important water resources for development. “Double core” is the two cities that play the role of central radiation, which refers to Hefei and Wuhu; the cities have an important role in promoting the economic development of the whole province. Wuhu is not the capital city of Anhui Province, but it occupies a favorable center in the core position of geography, and location advantage is obvious. The political center and economic center of a province are provincial capital cities, so Hefei has political and economic development advantages. Both advantages complement each other and play a huge role. In addition, Xuancheng and Chuzhou, which have great advantages in undertaking the Yangtze River Delta industry, are the “two wings” mentioned above. It can be seen in Figure 2 that the two can make full use of the technology and management experience of the Yangtze River Delta Economic Zone and give full play to the comparative advantages of vigorous innovation, distinctive manufacturing characteristics, broad inland hinterland and good ecological resources to radiate and drive the optimal development of the whole Wanjiang City Belt.

The data sources used in this study are the National Bureau of Statistics of China and the National Statistical Yearbook, as well as data published by the Statistical Bureau of Anhui Province. The sample data are the GDP and per capita GDP of nine cities in the Wanjiang City Belt and cities in Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions from 2015 to 2019, as well as the GDP growth rate of the second and third industries in the Wanjiang region from 2009 to 2019. The data from the National Bureau of Statistics and the National Statistical Yearbook are complete, and the official statistics are more accurate and authoritative, which can ensure the accuracy of the analysis results. The specific analysis process is as follows in Figure 3.

3.2. Nonparametric Test

Nonparametric tests are an important part of statistical analysis methods, which together with parametric tests constitute the basic content of statistical inference [50]. Parametric testing is a method of making inferences about the parameters of the overall distribution, such as the mean and variance, when the form of the overall distribution is known. However, in the process of data analysis, for a variety of reasons, it is often not possible to make simple assumptions about the shape of the overall distribution, and then the parametric test method is no longer applicable. Nonparametric tests are a type of inference method based on such considerations, using sample data to make inferences about the shape of the overall distribution when the overall variance is unknown or poorly known. The Friedman test, a nonparametric test for the existence of significant differences between multiple overall distributions using rank, is based on the assumption that there are no significant differences between multiple overall distributions of multiple paired samples. This study uses the Friedman test [51] to determine whether cities in the Wanjiang City Belt have the same level of economic development as cities in Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang. If the levels are different, the hypothesis that cities in the Wanjiang City Belt have the same level of economic development as cities in Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang will be rejected; if these cities have significantly different levels of economic development, post hoc tests will be needed to further differentiate the cities’ economic development. The calculation formulae of Friedman test are as follows:

$$T_{{\chi }^2}=\frac{12N}{k\left(k+1\right)}\left({\displaystyle \sum }_{i=1}^k{r}_i^2-\frac{k{\left(k+1\right)}^2}{4}\right)$$

(1)

$$T_F=\frac{\left(N-1\right)T_{{\chi }^2}}{N\left(k-1\right)-T_{{\chi }^2}}$$

(2)

where $r_i$ denotes the average ordinal value of the five-year data of the ith city. Based on Formulas (1) and (2) and the data set used, the value of $T_F$ can be calculated. If the value of $T_F$ is greater than the threshold value of the F-test at the specified significance level α, the hypothesis that all cities have the same level of economic development will be rejected. The critical value of the F-test can be calculated in R language by $qf\left(1-\alpha ,k-1,\left(k-1\right)\left(N-1\right)\right)$.

Finally, if the hypothesis that all cities have the same level of economic development is rejected, then a post hoc test will be needed to further differentiate the cities’ economic development status; the Nemenyi post hoc test is commonly used [52]. The Nemenyi post hoc test uses Equation (3) to calculate the critical value domain for the difference in mean ordinal values. The value of $q_{\alpha }$ in the Nemenyi test is the critical value of the Tukey distribution, which can be calculated in R language by $qtukey\left(1-\alpha ,k,Inf\right)/sqrt\left(2\right)$ with N being 5 and k being 12. If the difference between the average ordinal values of the two cities exceeds the critical value domain CD, the test results will show that the economic development levels of the two cities are significantly different under the specified significance level α; in this study, α = 0.05. The calculation formula for the subsequent Nemenyi post hoc test is as follows:

$$CD=q_{\alpha }\sqrt{\frac{k\left(k+1\right)}{6N}}$$

(3)

Through the test, the gap between the economic development level of Wanjiang City Belt, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions can be analyzed.

3.3. Time Series Forecasting Model

A time series is a set of numerical sequences of successive observations of the same phenomenon at different times. Time series forecasting methods use the historical data of a time series to reveal the pattern of a phenomenon over time, extend this pattern into the future and thus make predictions about the future of the phenomenon. The exponential smoothing method is the most widely used forecasting method. The exponential smoothing method, also known as the exponentially weighted average method, was first proposed by the American scholar Brow in 1959, who believed that the posture of time series has stability and regularity, so the time series can be reasonably extrapolated homeopathically. The exponential smoothing method calculates the exponential smoothing value, with a certain time series forecasting model to forecast the future and is a good performing and adaptable method in engineering and economic amount management, and other aspects of the forecast have a wide range of applications [53]. Exponential smoothing has the distinctive features of making full use of information from all data in the time series, and the process is clear and easy to calculate [54]. Commonly used exponential smoothing methods include the simple exponential smoothing method [55], Holt’s linear trend method [56] and the Holt–Winters seasonal method [57]. The specific smoothing method used in actual forecasting is determined by the trend analysis of the time series. The selection of the exponential smoothing method can generally be determined based on the trend presented by the scatter plot of the original series. If a linear trend is presented, Holt’s linear trend method is chosen; if a parabolic trend is presented, the Holt–Winters seasonal method is chosen; or when the data of the time series is processed by Holt’s linear trend method and there is still curvature, the Holt–Winters seasonal method should be chosen. The time series in this study is the growth rate of the secondary and tertiary industries in the Wanjiang region. After observing that the time series shows a linear decreasing trend in general, Holt’s linear trend method was used for forecasting. Holt’s linear trend method is a resmoothing of the simple exponential smoothing method, taking into account both the historical average and the changing trend, and its formulae are:

$$S_t^{\left(1\right)}=\alpha y_t+\left(1-\alpha \right)S_{t-1}^{\left(1\right)}$$

(4)

$$S_t^{\left(2\right)}=\alpha S_t^{\left(1\right)}+\left(1-\alpha \right)S_{t-1}^{\left(2\right)}$$

(5)

$$a_t=2S_t^{\left(1\right)}-S_t^{\left(2\right)}$$

(6)

$$b_t=\frac{\alpha }{1-\alpha }\left(S_t^{\left(1\right)}-S_t^{\left(2\right)}\right)$$

(7)

$$F_{t+m}=a_t+b_{t}m$$

(8)

$$MSE={\displaystyle \sum }_{t-1}^n{\left(y_t-F_t\right)}^2/n$$

(9)

where $S_t^{\left(1\right)}$ is the smoothed value of the simple exponential, $S_t^{\left(2\right)}$ is the smoothed value of Holt’s linear trend method, α is the smoothing constant, $y_t$ is the actual value in period t, $a_t$ and $b_t$ are the parameters of the linear smoothing model, $F_{t+m}$ is the forecast value in period t+m, m is the number of periods ahead of the forecast, and MSE is the mean squared error. The initial smoothing values $S_t^{\left(1\right)}$, $S_t^{\left(2\right)}$ need to be estimated, and this estimation is performed in all exponential smoothing methods. However, this estimate only has some influence on the calculation of the correlation at the initial stage, and as the number of forecast periods increases, its influence becomes smaller and smaller until it is completely eliminated. In general, the initial smoothing values $S_t^{\left(1\right)}$ and $S_t^{\left(2\right)}$ are taken as the observed values in the first period of the time series.

4. Results and Analysis

4.1. Analysis of Nonparametric Test

The level of urban development restricts the development of the regional economy [58]. The lack of the development level in cities in the Wanjiang City Belt affects the undertaking of industrial transfer [59]. In recent years, the development of the Wanjiang City Belt has shown a good momentum, but the overall economic level is still low. The urban regional GDP and urban per capita regional GDP are selected as indicators to reflect the level of urban economic development. The urban regional GDP and per capita regional GDP from 2015 to 2019 are used as data sets to conduct nonparametric tests on the Wanjiang City Belt and cities in Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang. Figure 4 and Figure 5 show the regional GDP and per capita regional GDP of nine cities in the Wanjiang City Belt and cities in Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang from 2015 to 2019, respectively. The statistics of the data are shown in

Table A1. The GDP of Wanjiang City Belt, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang from 2015 to 2019 (unit: CNY 100 million).

City	Year
	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019
Hefei	5660.27	6274.38	7003.05	7822.91	9409.40
Chuzhou	1305.70	1422.83	1604.39	1801.75	2909.06
Ma’anshan	1365.30	1493.76	1710.09	1918.10	2110.97
Wuhu	2457.32	2699.44	2963.28	3278.53	3618.26
Xuancheng	971.46	1057.82	1185.56	1317.20	1561.34
Tongling	911.60	957.30	1122.10	1222.36	960.17
Chizhou	544.74	589.02	624.35	684.93	831.73
Anqing	1417.43	1531.18	1708.83	1917.59	2380.52
Lu’an	1016.49	1108.15	1168.05	1288.05	1620.13
Wanjiang City Belt	15,650.31	17,133.88	19,089.7	21,251.42	25,401.58
Shanghai	25,123.45	28,178.65	30,632.99	32,679.87	38,156.00
Nanjing	9720.77	10,503.02	11,715.10	12,820.40	14,030.15
Hangzhou	10,050.21	11,313.72	12,603.36	13,509.15	15,373.05

and

Table A2. The per capita GDP of cities in the Wanjiang City Belt, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang from 2015 to 2019 (unit: CNY).

City	Year
	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019
Hefei	73,102.00	80,138.00	88,456.00	97,470.00	115,623.00
Chuzhou	32,634.00	35,302.00	39,517.00	43,999.00	70,429.00
Ma’anshan	60,802.00	65,833.00	74,709.00	82,695.00	89,867.00
Wuhu	67,592.00	73,715.00	80,458.00	88,085.00	96,154.00
Xuancheng	37,610.00	40,740.00	45,467.00	50,065.00	58,819.00
Tongling	57,387.00	59,960.00	69,935.00	75,524.00	58,726.00
Chizhou	38,014.00	40,919.00	43,178.00	46,865.00	56,217.00
Anqing	31,101.00	33,294.00	36,928.00	41,088.00	50,574.00
Lu’an	21,524.00	23,298.00	24,406.00	26,731.00	33,370.00
Wanjiang City Belt	419,766.00	453,199.00	503,054.00	552,522.00	629,779.00
Shanghai	103,796.00	116,562.00	126,634.00	134,982.00	157,279.00
Nanjing	118,171.00	127,263.83	141,103.00	152,886.00	165,681.00
Hangzhou	112,230.00	124,286.00	135,113.00	140,180.00	152,465.00

.

In order to determine whether the cities in the Wanjiang City Belt have the same level of economic development as the cities in Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang, the Friedman test was used, with Table A1 as the data. The test result was $T_F$ = 293.917. With Table A2 as the data, the test result was $T_F$= 174.750. These results show that the values of $T_F$ are greater than F at a significance level of $\alpha$= 0.05. The critical value of the F-test was 2.014 (the critical value of the F-test can be calculated in R language by $qf\left(1-\alpha ,k-1,\left(k-1\right)\left(N-1\right)\right)$, where k is the number of objects, and N is the number of data sets), thus rejecting the hypothesis that the cities in the Wanjiang City Belt have the same level of economic development as the cities in Shanghai and the Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions. The Nemenyi post hoc test was used to distinguish each city’s economic development level, and the results are shown in Figure 6 and Figure 7.

Figure 6 shows that the economic development level of Shanghai is significantly different from that of Xuancheng, Tongling, Chizhou and Lu’an, and the economic development level of Shanghai is higher than that of these cities. Through Figure 7, we can see that the economic development level of Nanjing is significantly different from that of Chuzhou, Anqing and Lu’an. From the data on per capita GDP in 2019 (Table A2), we can see that the per capita GDP of Hefei, Wuhu and Ma’anshan is relatively high, and the highest, Hefei, is 3.5 times that of the lowest, Lu’an. Although the regional GDP of the Wanjiang City Belt is more objective, there is still a certain gap in the per capita level compared to Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang [60]. In general, compared with Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang, the economic development level of the Wanjiang City Belt has a lot of room for improvement to achieve higher quality economic sustainable development.

4.2. Analysis of Time Series Prediction

The world economy, including China, has entered a new normal of low-speed growth, and economic growth has become more stable. The degree and speed of industrial transfer at home and abroad have slowed down accordingly. Figure 8 intuitively shows the growth trend of GDP in the secondary and tertiary industries in the Wanjiang area from 2009 to 2019. On the whole, from 2009 to 2019, the growth rate of GDP in the second and third industries in the Wanjiang region showed a slowing trend, and the speed of undertaking industrial transfer in the Wanjiang region also slowed down. We have predicted the growth rates of the gross domestic product of the secondary and tertiary industries in the Wanjiang region from 2020 to 2023 using Holt’s linear trend method, and the predicted results are shown in

Table 1. Results of Holt’s linear trend method of forecasting.

Year	Secondary Industry (%)	Tertiary Industry (%)
2020	7.07	6.89
2021	6.14	6.17
2022	5.76	5.46
2023	5.11	4.74

, from which we can see that the overall trend is to show a slowdown, and the sustainable development of the Wanjiang region in taking up industrial transfer will be affected in the future.

4.3. Analysis on the Influencing Factors of Undertaking Industrial Transfer on the Development of the Wanjiang City Belt

4.3.1. Slowdown of Undertaking Industrial Transfer

The Wanjiang City Belt mainly undertakes industrial transfer from the Yangtze River Delta region. From the perspective of spatial distance, the Wanjiang region has obvious geographical advantages, but it will inevitably be restricted by the “regional stickiness” of the origin [61]. In the current “new normal” development situation, this phenomenon will inevitably intensify. In addition, the development of the modern service industry in the Wanjiang area is at a relatively backward level compared with the whole country. The comprehensive development level of the modern service industry in the Wanjiang area is low, and the basic supporting services and financial services provided are not perfect enough, which leads to insufficient attraction to the transfer of surrounding industries, and its industrialization and socialization degree have great room for improvement. The other central and western regions, with their superior resources to attract related industries, means the Wanjiang region is facing increasingly fierce competition in undertaking industrial transfer.

4.3.2. Restriction of Regional Administrative Barriers

The executive power of the Government has a great influence on the regional economic development. In the process of industrial transfer, favorable regional administrative policies will promote the development and growth of industries, while unfavorable regional administrative policies, such as administrative restrictions in the transfer-out areas and administrative barriers between the transfer-in areas, will restrict the progress of the industrial transfer process. For the relocating party, the outward relocation of industries will affect local tax revenue and employment. In order to develop the province’s economy, the local governments of the transferring regions will administratively retain some enterprises that try to transfer out of the province based on factors such as fiscal revenue and employment and will encourage them to move to less developed regions within the province. An example is the regional development plan proposed by Jiangsu Province to relocate industries from southern Jiangsu to northern Jiangsu. The administrative barriers to industrial relocation have, to a certain extent, alleviated the problems of industrial hollowing out and declining employment caused by the outward movement of industries and have contributed to the completion of the regional GDP target on schedule, but this has failed to make optimal use of the actual resources and economic situation of the region and has greatly affected the normal process of taking up industrial relocation activities in the Wanjiang City Belt. In addition, from the internal barriers, the cities in the Wanjiang City Belt have problems such as self-governance and bad competition, which makes the drawbacks of regional economic development obvious and restricts regional sustainable development.

4.3.3. Low Level of Industrial Agglomeration

The advantageous development of taking over transferred industries cannot be separated from the formation of corresponding industrial clusters, which are independent of each other and influence each other. The selective undertaking of industrial transfer can improve the agglomeration of specific industries, promote the growth of industrial clusters and realize the sustainable development of regional economy. At present, the industrial agglomeration in the Wanjiang region is mostly formed by horizontal economic ties; the scale is not large, and the distribution is not concentrated enough. In addition, the industrial agglomeration in the Wanjiang region is strongly dependent on resources, and the technological content is not high [62].

5. Conclusions

5.1. Research Conclusions

In this study, we used nonparametric tests to perform Friedman and Nemenyi tests on the urban GDP and GDP per capita of the Wanjiang City Belt as well as Shanghai and the Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions as data sets. Subsequently, we used Holt’s linear trend method to predict the growth rate of the gross regional product of the secondary and tertiary industries in the Wanjiang region from 2020 to 2023. In this study, we evaluated and analyzed the current situation of the ability of the Wanjiang City Belt to undertake industrial transfer. In this study, we studied the current situation of undertaking industrial transfer in the Wanjiang City Belt and analyzed the influencing factors of undertaking industrial transfer on the sustainable development of the Wanjiang region.

The impact of taking over industrial transfer on the sustainable development of the Wanjiang City Belt is divided into two sides. On the one side, the demonstration zone combines taking over industrial transfer with guiding the optimal allocation of resources; introducing a number of domestic and foreign leading enterprises; vigorously developing new-generation information technology, artificial intelligence, high-end equipment manufacturing, intelligent network-connected vehicles and other emerging industries; and fostering the formation of a number of industrial clusters with significant influence [63]. On the other side, many contradictory problems have emerged in the process of undertaking industrial transfer in the Wanjiang City Belt, and these problems have restricted the sustainable development of the Wanjiang region.

First, the Wanjiang City Belt has a lot of location, resource, industrial base and policy advantages in undertaking industrial transfer from the Yangtze River Delta. The construction of a demonstration area for the Wanjiang City Belt to undertake industrial transfer is of epoch-making significance for promoting the optimization and upgrading of the industrial structure, promoting the rise of the central region, promoting regional coordinated development and promoting the sustainable development of regional economy. However, there are still many problems in the continuous practice of undertaking industrial transfer in the Wanjiang City Belt, which restrict the healthy and sustainable development of Wanjiang City.

Second, in the process of undertaking industrial transfer in the Wanjiang City Belt, the unbalanced level of the undertaking capacity in each city, industrial isomorphism and regional competition have made the drawbacks of regional economic development obvious. The modernization of most cities in the Wanjiang City Belt has not been realized, and they cannot play to each other’s collective strengths. The generally small size of the cities restricts the development of the tertiary industry, which is not conducive to the rapid development of the regional economy. The unbalanced development within the Wanjiang City Belt will affect policy coordination and industrial integration within the region.

5.2. Policy Recommendations

In view of the disadvantages highlighted in the process of undertaking industrial transfer in the Wanjiang City Belt and the imbalance in the level of undertaking capacity among cities, we put forward the following policy recommendations in order to solve these problems and promote the sustainable development of the Wanjiang region.

The first is to coordinate the interests of all parties in the Wanjiang City Belt, to reform the performance assessment standards and regulate the competitive market environment. Local governments and relevant departments should formulate and improve relevant policies to provide sufficient policy and institutional protection for undertaking industrial transfer from the Yangtze River Delta region. Local governments intervene in the economic activity of undertaking industrial transfer because the system of assessing the performance of local governments is mainly based on the data of economic growth and changing the direction of factor markets is bound to drive economic growth to a certain extent. In order to fundamentally change the obstacles brought by policy barriers to the undertaking of industrial transfer, it is necessary to change the performance assessment system; establish an effective competition system; strengthen supervision; improve market monitoring behavior; increase the transparency of the Government in the work of promoting industrial transfer in the Wanjiang City Belt; realize the free, safe and efficient flow of capital; and provide guarantees for the sustainable economic development of the Wanjiang City Belt.

The second is to achieve differentiated development according to the strengths of each region and to promote the coordinated regional development of the Wanjiang City Belt. At present, competition among municipalities, especially homogeneous competition, still exists. In response, each municipality in the Wanjiang City Belt should explore its comparative advantages; strive to build and develop its own characteristic industries; try to avoid the emergence of similar industries among municipalities; and reduce the existence of low-level vicious competition in the same industry. A differentiated and dislocated development approach can give full play to regional advantages and industrial synergies, promote the formation of a spatially integrated pattern in the demonstration zone for undertaking industrial transfer in the Wanjiang City Belt and promote sustainable urban development. The cities of Hefei and Wuhu focus on developing and undertaking innovative industries and high-tech industries, giving full play to the role of radiation and drive. The five cities along the river should make full use of the advantages of the shoreline and the special resources along the river to undertake and develop special industries to improve the relevance of industrial undertaking and facilitate the formation of industrial clusters.

Third, importance should be attached to talent training, independent innovation ability and the promotion of the innovation and development of the Wanjiang region. The problem of the talent supply gap in the undertaking of industrial transfer and industrial upgrading will seriously restrict the innovative development of industries in the Wanjiang region. The Wanjiang region should recognise the important role of high-end talents in undertaking industrial transfer and industrial upgrading and take the introduction and cultivation of talents as an important link in industrial undertaking and upgrading. Innovative and diversified talent training mechanisms should be established, and universities, research institutes and other institutions should be encouraged to set up various research and development (R&D) centers to train high-level talents that meet development needs. In addition, high-level talents should be introduced and absorbed through high-paid employment, cooperation between industries, universities and research institutes, and technology shareholding. Local governments should introduce policies to encourage the transfer of enterprises together with the R&D aspects of technology, encouraging enterprises to increase their independent innovation and R&D investment and give financial incentives and tax concessions to enterprises with major innovations. R&D results should be transformed into advanced productivity, which will really promote the technological innovation of enterprises and improve their core competitiveness.

Fourth, industrial clustering and innovative park development should be accelerated. In the direction of industrial development, the Wanjiang region should seize strategic opportunities such as the national promotion of the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta; adhere to the new development concept; adhere to high-quality development; focus on the goal of accelerating the construction of advantageous industrial clusters led by advanced manufacturing and modern service industries; take the layout and transfer of emerging industries as the main grasp; focus on improving the industrial foundation capacity and the level of industrial chains; focus on undertaking the layout of electrical and electronic information, intelligent automobiles, high-end equipment manufacturing and other industries; continuously upgrade the industrial level by accelerating the industrial clustering, creating various industrial innovation platforms and promoting the gradual penetration of industrial chains, innovation chains, supply chains and service chains; and establish a strategic emerging industry cluster development base with significant influence.

The fifth is to achieve green production and ecologically sustainable development of the Wanjiang City Belt. In the process of undertaking industrial transfer, we should attach great importance to the protection of the ecological environment. The undertaking and introduction of industries in the Wanjiang City Belt should follow a path of implementing the concept of scientific development and green development. We should pay attention to the protection of ecological civilization, implement the concept of ecological sustainable development and achieve a balance between industrial undertaking and ecological environment protection. We should strictly audit foreign investment projects, improve the level of industry to undertake and increase the proportion of the introduction of services and high-tech industries. In industrial development, we should learn from history and not achieve economic growth at the expense of the ecological environment to achieve economic benefits and the scientific development of the natural ecological environment and protect ecological sustainability.

This study analyzed and researched some outstanding problems in the process of undertaking industrial transfer in the Wanjiang City Belt and then put forward policy recommendations for achieving sustainable development in the Wanjiang region. However, there are still some shortcomings. Firstly, it is difficult to take into account all of the influencing factors in the evaluation of the taking over capacity of each city in the Wanjiang City Belt, so the evaluation analysis is inadequate. Secondly, in the study on the prediction of the growth rate of the gross regional product of the secondary and tertiary industries in the Wanjiang area, the data for 2020 and beyond have not yet been published and cannot fully reflect the current situation. In future studies, we can construct more reasonable evaluation indicators for the analysis of the current situation, add more data and further deepen the study.