Five mayors spell out economic strategies

Editor's note: Liaoning province, China's traditional industrial base, is going to achieve a leap-forward in economic development through the "Five Points, One Line" strategy.

Liaoning's provincial government initiated the "Five Points, One Line" strategy in 2005 as part of its 11th Five Year Plan (2006-10). The strategy is a core part of the province's target to build a coastal economic belt, which will serve as an economic engine for the province in northern China.

The "Five Points" refer to the areas of Changxing Island Harbor Industrial Zone in Dalian, Yingkou Coastal Industrial Base, Liaoxi Jinzhou Bay Coastal Economic Zone, Dandong Industrial Zone and the Zhuanghe Huayuankou Industrial Zone in Dalian.

The "One Line" refers to a proposed expressway linking the coastal cities. This is seen as a key component in stimulating growth in the province's coastal economic belt.

The province is also making considerable effort to construct relevant facilities and improve the local environment, in line with the "Five Points, One Line" development strategy.

Five mayors of Liaoning province explained the development of their respective administrative regions to China Business Weekly reporter Yu Tianyu in exclusive interviews in Beijing.

Yingkou

Yingkou, a port city of Bohai Sea, has seen enormous economic opportunities brought by the strategy.

"Yingkou will gain enormous opportunities through the implementation of the strategy, especially for our six pillar industries including steel, petrochemical, equipment manufacture, textile, magnesium-based materials and construction and engineering material," said Gao Jun, mayor of Yingkou.

Yingkou is the backbone of the coastal economic belt and is ideally positioned in terms of geography, transportation and land resource in North China, Gao said.

Gao said: " We are doing industrial plan at a very high level and we will keep a close eye on world-leading technologies and industries."

Besides, a 300,000-ton wharf for crude oil, which is under construction, will provide another advantage for developing Yingkou's petrochemical industry.

Panjin

Red beach in Panjin, the only one in the world to have the color, also has the world's largest coastal marshland.

It is also a very oil-reliant city and home to the Liaohe oil field, the third largest in China.

Sun Guoxiang, mayor of Panjin, said: " To take the opportunities brought by the 'Five Points, One Line' strategy, our work will mainly be based on further opening-up, and promoting investment."

Meanwhile, the city is striving to construct an oil processing equipment zone and is also keen on developing a synthetic rubber industry.

"We are fast becoming a coastal industrial base with an integrated port facility, combining ship-building facilities with our existing strengths in the petrochemical, oil processing equipment and machinery manufacturing industries," Sun said.

Sun added that apart from the city's development plans, environmental protection is surely their priority.

Huludao

With the rapid development of Liaoning's coastal economic belt, some very large projects have been launched within the 400 sq km coastal area of Huludao. This includes two 300,000 ton docks by the Bohai Shipbuilding Heavy Industry Co Ltd.

The Huludao municipal government has approved the construction of an industrial shipping park, which will have over 40 shipbuilding companies and other supporting enterprises.

Mayor of Huludao, Sun Zhaolin, said that in line with the provincial "Five Points, One Line" strategy, Huludao is targeting an increase in its shipbuilding capacity to 8 million tons per year and improving its oil refining capacity to 17 million tons, its nonferrous metal output to 2 million tons and its power generation capacity to 6 million tons by 2015.

Jinzhou

Wang Wenquan, mayor of Jinzhou, said: "If the 'Five Points, One Line' strategy upgrades to become a national one, Jinzhou will be the greatest beneficiary."

Petrochemical is Jinzhou's primary industry, however, it will take time to reform its industrial structure, Wang said.

The city is also making a great effort to develop the solar power industry. The annual output of the industry currently stands at more than 1.2 billion yuan, positioning it second of this kind inChina.

Auto parts manufacturing, chemical industries and modern service industries will be the three main areas of development for Jinzhou, Wang said.

Dandong

As the easternmost point of the 'Five Points, One Line' coastal economic belt, Dandong is the only border city on the belt with easy access to the Korean Peninsula and the whole of Eurasia.

Zhao Liansheng, mayor of Dandong, said: "The city will make use of its geographical advantage and accelerate construction of its port-vicinity industrial park."

The industrial park will focus on precision equipment manufacturing, shipbuilding and repairing and auto parts manufacturing," Zhao said.

Zhao added that the city will further open up to international investors and boost development of industrial clusters.

Zhao said Dandong is also planning to build a Singapore-focused industrial zone, a wristwatch industrial zone and a stainless steel industrial zone.

(China Daily 04/27/2009 page5)