Foshan Special: Home to opera, martial arts - and intensive investment
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At the heart of the Pearl River Delta, the city has easy transportation links to nearby Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Macao. |
Next door to Guangzhou, the Pearl River Delta city of Foshan administers the districts of Chancheng, Nanhai, Shunde, Gaoming and Sanshui. It has a total area of 3,848 sq km and a population of 5.9 million.
The city was the cradle of both Cantonese opera and cuisine. It is also known for its connection to the martial arts. Its is the ancestral home of 1970s action movie superstar Bruce Lee and the hometown of Huang Feihong, one of China's all-time greatest masters of martial arts.
A drive of only 45 minutes to downtown Guangzhou, Foshan benefits from the well-developed infrastructure and logistics facilities in and around the capital of Guangdong province, including nearby Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport, Nansha Port and Guangzhou Railway Station.
Other resources readily available include financing channels, human resources and information.
The city is at the crossroads of major highways in the region, making travel to other Pearl River Delta cities as well as Hong Kong and Macao convenient and swift.
Foshan is one of the best-developed and most affluent cities in the Pearl River Delta region. Its GDP ranks the third only after Guangzhou and Shenzhen in Guangdong and its manufacturing industry is among the best in the province, even in China.
Foshan is one of the most important commercial hubs in South China with its 129 wholesale markets covering an area of 5.67 million sq m as well as with its international industrial expos of household appliances, ceramics, machinery and furniture.
Foshan is also one of Guangdong's hotspots for foreign investment. It has more than 7,000 foreign-funded enterprises that have invested more than $20 billion in their operations in the city.
Multinationals that have invested in the city include Siemens, Dupont, Tetra Pak, SemiLEDs, Denso, Nortel, Tokai Rika, Osram, Thomson, Bosch, Itochu, Koyo, Coca-cola, Red Bull, Budweiser, Invista, Usinor, Teijin, Nichiwa, TDK, Tyco, Premier, Mitac, Altia Hashimoto, Matsushita, Kobelco, Groupe Arcelor, Esquel Group, Shell, Caterpillar, Tamron, Whirlpool, Messer, Posco, Hitachi Chemical, Total Fina Elf, Magna, Hoechst, Texon, Kohler, Honda, Toshiba and Aisin.
Foshan has seven industrial zones that are now home to about 4,000 enterprises.
(China Daily 03/29/2010 page13)
