Abstract:

As the national critical material basis of survival and economic development, genetic resources (GRs) are the strategic resources for a countrys sustainable economic development. Relied on GRs, bioeconomy structured by biotechnology and industries becomes a new economic form after the types of agricultural economy, industrial economy and information economy. Some scholars predicted that bioeconomy which is hailed as “the 4th driving force of world economic growth” would be the leader of world economic development after the 2020s. GRs not only offer raw materials for clothing, food, shelter and medicine, but provide a pleasant ecological environment. China is one of the richest biodiversity countries and the most important centers of origin of crops in the world, and it is also the native habitats of various endemic species. Whats more, the worldwide famous Chinese traditional medicine and its associated traditional knowledge are the precious resources for innovation of many related industries (genetic resources industries). The socioeconomic development of a region is closely related to the utilization of GRs, and thus the richness of GRs has become an important indicator of measuring the capacity of socioeconomic development in a district or a country. For a long time, the socioeconomic value of genetic resources has been underestimated in different degrees. Ignoring the socioeconomic contributions of GRs, will bring the continuous destruction and degradation of resource and ecological environment. This paper gave a theoretical framework for the research, and chose Taizhou as the case of empirical analysis. Based on the analysis of GRs conception and its value varieties, we appraised the direct economic value, R&D value, conservation value and social benefit value of the GRs in Taizhou 2011. The results showed that the total economic value of GRs was ￥22688×108, being equivalent to 9.35% of the GDP in Taizhou 2011; the direct economic value, R&D value, conservation value and social benefit value of the GRs was ￥14350×108, ￥1426×108, ￥6013×108, ￥899×108, respectively. And total economic value of the four values in the genetic resources three industries were ￥14139×108, ￥5606×108, ￥2943×108, respectively. As the result of our case study we find that the GRs make great economic contributions in the genetic resources three industries, especially in the genetic resources primary industry and tertiary industry, which were 8383% and 3499% respectively. However, with regard to the three industries in the whole region of Taizhou, the GRs made less contributions in the secondary industry and tertiary industry, which were just 4% and 315% respectively. The main reason is fewer industries correlated with the GRs in secondary industry and tertiary industry, so as to the contributions of GRs are great difference between the genetic resources industries and regional industries. Evaluating the contribution of socioeconomic development of GRs, analyzing its mechanism of output process in various related industries, it is of great significance to discover the potential economic contribution of GRs and establish international regimes of GRs access and benefit sharing (ABS).