Yinchuan: Optimum for both living and investment

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By Cai Muyuan (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2009-07-10 12:52

Qi Lan sat beside a fountain in the central park in Yinchuan, the capital city of Ningxia Hui autonomous region, holding a small gadget in her hand designed to pick up a pet dog's excrement.

"Most dog owners in our city take this with them when walking their dogs. It's our responsibility to keep the city clean," she said. "Walk around, you'll see it's hard even to find a piece of waste paper on the ground here."

And she's right. The city is so neat and clean with enchanting landscape that it's hard to imagine it used to be a desolate and arid place.

Living: New Jiangnan on the frontier

"We are on the road to develop Yinchuan into the most livable city and a paradise for business startups and investment in western China", said Chen Zhiwen, director of Yinchuan's investment promotion bureau.

Yinchuan: Optimum for both living and investment
People enjoy the fountain in the central park of Yinchuan at dusk. [chinadaily.com.cn]

The city's infrastructure construction has been gaining speed in recent years. Not only is agriculture benefiting from a developed irrigation network using water diverted from the Yellow River, the city's greenery coverage has reached 36.8 percent and its per capita urban public grassland area has hit 8.39 sq m. In addition, the city scored 323 days of good air quality last year.

The city's unique natural advantages also come from local lakes and wetlands. Recently, Yinchuan has expanded 20 lakes and wetlands. The area of wetlands in the city now reaches 47,000 hectares. The city also owns the first State-level wetlands park in northwestern China.

Though rich coal reserves and low electricity prices in Yinchuan give rise to many heavily resources-consuming industries, which are also the major sources of pollution, the city has made great effort to protect the environment. In 2008, Ningxia ranked the second in China in the rate of emission reduction.

Chen said 57 percent of the city's home buyers were not locals and most of them came from Gansu, Shanxi and Inner Mongolia. "Despite the economic slowdown, our housing industry is still booming", said Chen.

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