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with highest rates of literacy (Angang et al. 2005). In addition, Chinese
income per capita disparities are also exacerbated by a fiscal and transfer
system which significantly benefits urban residents (Angang et al. 2005).
More generally, however, the competition and wealth effects associated
with buoyant regional growth across a range of local sectors tend to spill
over to other local sectors, and agriculture in the faster-growing regions
will have benefited from such effects.
There is, however, increasing evidence that the spatial concentration
effects of economic growth are starting to reverse in China, with economic
growth becoming increasingly dispersed across a wide range of locations.
MGI forecast that some 350 million will be added to China's urban popu-
lation by 2025, and that 1 billion people will live in China's cities by 2030
(MGI 2009). This urban population is expected to be comprised of over
220 cities with populations of more than 1 million people, (Europe has 35
such cities), driving an economy which will have expanded by close to 500
per cent between 2010 and 2025 (MGI 2009). This likely trend towards
greater geographical dispersion is also being fostered by the institutional
decentralization within the Chinese economic system (Xu 2011). These
current and emerging trends would suggest that the geography of MNE
investment patterns within China will also evolve over the coming decades
in ways which will probably be rather different from the inward FDI pat-
terns evident since the late 1980s, which tended to be heavily focussed only
on the mega-cities.
8.6.2
The Changing Economic Geography of the Other BRIICS
Countries
Many of these same economic phenomena evident in China are increas-
ingly evident also in the case of India. Like China, India also began its
economic restructuring with initially modest reforms by reducing trade
barriers and distortions to competition within the economy. In 1991 the
average tariff was 83 per cent, and only 13 per cent of goods were importa-
ble without a license (World Bank 2005). By 1998 tariffs had been reduced
to 30 per cent, and the range of goods importable without a license was
57 per cent (World Bank 2005). Since then, Indian GDP per capita has
increased by four-fold between 1980 and 2002 (World Bank 2005). As in
the case of China, recognizing the need to access global capital, technol-
ogy and knowledge assets via inward multinational investment, India has
also moved to increase its attractiveness as a location for FDI. The Indian
Investment Commission aims at attracting foreign as well as domestic
investment, while the Foreign Investment Board is intended to act as a
one-stop service centre and facilitator for FDI (UNCTAD 2005). In 2004
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