Guangdong Zhaoqing Special
Second windfall boosts coffers of Hi-tech zone
By Li Sheng (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-12-10 07:49
ZHAOQING, Guangdong: In the wake of an already bumper investment harvest - the result of a major promotional campaign in Beijing in October- the Zhaoqing High-Tech Industrial Development Zone secured an additional raft of investment projects earlier this week. The latest wins follow the zone's campaign of the 2009 Dawang Golden Autumn.
In total, the zone secured 116 new projects, said to be worth a total of 36.23 billion yuan. These were a direct result of the Golden Autumn initiative, an annual event organized by the administrative committee of the zone. The event is now one of the key showcases for the zone's investment climate and economic and trade co-operative opportunities.
This latest windfall came only two months after the zone signed substantial contracts in Beijing in mid-October, securing 11.1 billion yuan's worth of investment for four gigantic projects.
Liu Longping, Party secretary of the zone, said: "The excellent results from both the Beijing event and the local Dawang Golden Autumn event clearly show that the zone is increasingly popular among investors."
According to Liu, the zone secured 21.85 billion yuan across 102 projects during the Dawang Golden Autumn event in 2008 and 20.8 billion yuan across 88 projects in 2007. He also said that more than 90 percent of the contracts won by the zone have now been implemented.
He said: "You can see with your own eyes that the zone is increasingly attractive to domestic and overseas financiers. It has become the key brand in Zhaoqing and throughout Guangdong in terms of winning over investors."
According to Liu, the zone has secured more than 500 manufacturing businesses, over 150 of which are now operational. These projects involve contractual foreign capital of more than $5 billion and committed foreign capital in excess of $2 billion.
Many of the more substantial investment projects in Zhaoqing are located in the zone. These include South Korea's Hyundai and SK and US-based Leggett & Platt, headquartered in the United States, all of which are listed among the world's top 500 companies. The zone is also home to Asia Aluminum, a leading Asian aluminum material supplier, the China Guodian Group, a major power company owned by central government and Japan-based Toyo Aluminum, one of the world's leading aluminum paste suppliers.
Committed foreign investment in the zone was $273 million in the January-October period of this year despite the global economic downturn. The figure for 2008 was $310 million, accounting for over one third of the total in the whole of Zhaoqing.
The zone has been ranked third in terms of utilization of foreign capital among the 97 development zones in Guangdong for three consecutive years. It has also been fourth in the list of all of the 69 province-level development zones for four consecutive years.
The zone also ranked as number one for industrial transfer throughout the province and in the achievement of targets set by the provincial authorities for 2008.
Liu said: "Our achievements have been spoken highly of by the provincial leaders of Guangdong, including provincial Party Secretary Wang Yang and Governor Huang Huahua. Both have gone on record as saying that the zone has very unique advantages in terms of land availability and is sure to attract investors. They have also commented that zone has made impressive progress, with its development being the most rapid among all the province's economic zones.
"We are now gearing up to establish the zone as a key industrial center, a model for other industrial parks to follow and a self-contained modern industrial city within the province. We will also seek to highlight its high-tech industries, advanced equipment manufacturing, tertiary industries and public facilities as part of our development strategy. This is vital to our bid to become a State-level high-tech zone and to generate an annual industrial output of 500 billion yuan at the earliest opportunity."
Founded in 1998 and located in the east of Zhaoqing, the zone is just 50 km away from Guangzhou, the provincial capital of Guangdong. Its has an efficient and integrated traffic network, allowing rapid access to the other delta cities, as well as to the whole of the southwest China region.
The zone covers an area of 98 sq km, 25 sq km of which has been planned as part of its phase one development.
(China Daily 12/10/2009 page7)
