Jinzhou vying for investment

Jinzhou Xihai Industrial Zone is another of Liaoning province's five industrial zones emerging as a popular investment destination due to its geographic location and accommodating investment environment.

With a planned area of 45 sq km, the zone is only 25 km from urban Jinzhou in the west of the province. The coastal city has a strategically significant location linking the northern and northeastern regions of the country.

Jinzhou Airport is 28 km from the zone, while four expressways and a highway run through it, making it a key transportation hub.

Jinzhou Harbor, a deepwater, ice-free port, is in the zone. The port had a annual throughput of 35.15 million tons of goods and 450,000 twenty-foot equivalent container units in 2007.

With its comprehensive transportation network, the zone has become a key regional commercial center and one of the three main logistics hubs in the province where 85 logistics companies now have operations.

In addition to logistics, tourism and harbor industries are other pillar sectors of the zone.

Harbor industries include machinery and equipment, automobiles and auto parts, the photovoltaic industry, petrochemicals, bio-pharmaceuticals, construction materials and farm goods processing.

The zone is divided into five functioning sections for harbor, warehousing, industry, commerce and tourism.

Local authorities have so far invested 6.5 billion yuan in infrastructure construction.

Facilities for water, heat and power supplies, communications and sewage treatment in an initial 22.76 sq km area have been completed.

Its transportation network, including 30 roads, has been extended, and the zone's environmental green coverage has risen to 1 million sq m.

At the same time, authorities offer a one-stop administrative service, seeking to reduce administrative procedures and costs.

Investment projects in the zone will enjoy both preferential policies, which the central government began in 2003 in a bid to revitalize the traditional industrial bases in northeast China and favorable treatment by the provincial government aimed to bolstering the five key coastal development zones.

In addition, the zone's authorities say they will extend special support to large or hi-tech projects.

(China Daily 03/05/2008 page28)