River of Gold
While his predecessors may have advocated classic texts, Chongqing Municipality Party Chief Wang Yang urged each member of his team to read The World is Flat.
Thomas F Friedman's best-selling brief history of the 21st Century probes the progress of globalization - which fits well with Wang's own vision for the future.
Chongqing has undergone fast economic development over the past 10 years since the municipality was established in 1997. Jiang Dong |
"He always urges government officials to open up their mind so that the city can stand out in the country's western development program," Luo Guang, director of the financial office of the municipal government, told China Daily.
"We are afraid that if we fail to upgrade our industry structure in time, Chongqing may be relegated to a supporting role to Shanghai or our neighboring city of Chengdu."
But the central government is determined to make Chongqing, the largest provincial-level municipality in China and the only one in its west, the economic center of the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River by 2020.
By 2015, Chongqing should also be the area's financial center, said Chongqing's mayor, Wang Hongju.
Historically, Chongqing has been a major inland trading port, transporting goods from the southwestern provinces to eastern China.
It became the wartime capital of the Kuomingtang government during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (1937-45). Many factories and universities were moved from eastern China to Chongqing during the war, transforming it into a heavy industrial city.
While military industry continued after 1949, many related enterprises have been reformed since the 1980s and now produce civilian products, such as motorcycles and general machinery. Chongqing is home to dozens of machinery and car factories, including Chang'an Ford Automobile Co Ltd.
"We don't want to see Chongqing becoming another Detroit, another Motown," Luo said. "We need to develop the services, such as logistics, trade and financial services."
In the last decade, 1,123.5 billion yuan ($148 billion) has been poured into infrastructure and other fixed assets, with the annual GDP growth rate remaining at 10.2 percent.
"By 2010, Chongqing still needs another 1 trillion yuan ($132 billion) to keep the GDP growth rate. We are about to lower the investment from the government and banks and try to get more money through financing," said Wang Jun, deputy director of the financial office. Ten years ago, the value generated from financial industry contributed only 3 percent of the local GDP. In 2006, that number rose to 3.5.
"In the future, it will reach 10 percent," Luo said. "Finance will play a bigger role in our economic development in the next decade."
Chongqing now enjoys a simple and efficient administrative structure with one municipal government managing 40 county-level subdivisions. "This system reduces bureaucracy and integrates the resources, so that our government can work very efficiently," Luo said.
He said they worked hard to restructure the bad assets of the local State-owned enterprises. Now the bad assets ratio in Chongqing is about 5 percent, lower than the national average level of 6 percent.
The huge infrastructure investment has helped Chongqing become the best transportation location in western China, Luo said. Eight highways, nine railway routes, a container port and a new airport terminal will better connect the hinterland city with the outside world.
Chongqing's goal of becoming the financial center of the country's west came as large financial institutions launched their own "Go West" plans. HSBC, one of the world's largest banking and financial services organizations, opened its Chongqing representative office in 1999 and upgraded it into a full service branch in August 2005.
"No one wants to miss this opportunity," said Frank L F Wu, HSBC's Chongqing branch manager.
Another five foreign banks, including Standard Chartered and ABN AMRO, have followed HSBC to Chongqing. According to the local Committee of Bank Supervision and Administration, Citibank is also willing to expand its business to the area. "Our performance in Chongqing is much better than expected and last year we were one of the best performed branches in China," Wu said.
HSBC is considering setting up a regional center in western China. It may be Chongqing or Chengdu, but Wu thinks Chongqing has a better chance. Already, HSBC Asia's president Michael Smith is a member of Chongqing mayor's thinktank. "Michael is quite active in promoting the business in this region," Wu said.
Chongqing also leads other inland cities in its number of insurance companies, including Liberty Mutual Insurance Company, MetLife and Great Eastern Life Assurance (China) Co, Ltd. In 1997, the annual insurance fee income in Chongqing was 1.3 billion yuan ($170 million) and in 2006, this figure reached 9.3 billion yuan ($1.22 billion).
To attract more financial institutions and professionals, the local government gives a range of economic incentives and favorable policies. They include a subsidy of 2 to 10 million yuan ($263,000 to 1.3 million) for every new financial institution in Chongqing, tax exemption on purchasing real estate properties and annual awards for organizations with the best performance.
(China Daily 06/21/2007 page22)
