Research on Coupling Coordination and the Development of Green Shipping and Economic Growth in China

Abstract

The shipping industry is an important indicator of economic development, and it is closely related to economic growth. At present, China’s economy has moved from a high-speed growth stage to a high-quality development stage. The popularization of the green shipping concept also creates higher requirements for sustainable economic development. The core innovation point of this paper is to construct an index system of green shipping and economic growth in China, and to measure the coupling coordination degree and relative development degree of the two through the comprehensive development index in the form of overall and regional division. This is rarely covered in the existing literature. By constructing an index system for green shipping and economic growth, this paper calculates a comprehensive development index for the two systems and studies the degree of coupling coordination and relative development of the comprehensive system. The results show that, first, during the observation period, the comprehensive system of green shipping and economic growth in China has maintained a growth trend, rising from a near imbalance to a good coordination level, and the two have developed into a synchronous state. Second, the development of the Yangtze River Delta has been relatively rapid, closely followed by that of the Pearl River Delta, while the Bohai Rim area has seen the slowest development. Since 2010, China’s comprehensive system of 11 coastal provinces has mostly left the imbalanced state and it entered the coordination state by 2019. The results of the study provide some suggestions for the coordinated development of green shipping and economic growth.