REGIONAL> news
Favor of industrial transfer
By Xiao Qian (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-12-11 07:58

 

The Silver Beach or Yintan in Beihai along the Beibu Bay shoreline in Guangxi becomes even more colorful.

Located west of Guangdong province, the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region is also expected to build up its manufacturing and processing industries during the industrial relocation now underway from eastern coastal regions.

Ma Biao, governor of Guangxi. said cities in Guangxi are now stepping up efforts to build factories to brace for coming labor-intensive industries that are moving from the east. Construction on infrastructure projects connecting Guangxi with the neighboring Pearl River Delta through a network of railways, high-speed roads and waterways is also under full steam to facilitate the move.

Work on a high-speed railway between the capital cities Nanning and Guangzhou, started early last month. It will cut travel time from almost 13 hours to three.

The 41 billion yuan, 577-km railways, 61 percent of which will be in Guangxi, will carry trains as fast as 200 km per hour. It will be completed in about four years.

New expressways linking the two regions will be open for traffic next year.

"The Pearl River Delta is the forerunner in the reform and opening up in the late 1970s and it is also one of the most vibrant economic clusters in China," Ma said. "As its neighbor, Guangxi is geographically privileged to serve as its target of its industrial transfer."

Guangxi is also taking advantage of its location to step up cooperation with Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. According to Ma, the three regions have now become "the major sources of overseas direct investment in Guangxi".

In Fangchenggang, Wuhan Iron and Steel Works, China's fourth-largest producer, has formed a joint venture with Guangxi Liuzhou Iron and Steel Works to build a huge foundry.

Designed for a production capacity of 10 million tons a year, the project has already been approved by China's top economic planner to provide rolled steel to southwest and south China regions as well as ASEAN countries.

The formation of steel center will assist development of both the upper and lower segments of the industrial chain, possibly bringing enterprises into neighboring western provinces.

PetroChina, China's largest oil producer, is also building a new facility, a 10-million-ton-a-year oil refinery in Qinzhou.

To be fully operational by the end of 2009, the refinery will benefit from the huge market demand in southwestern China, said Li Libin, project director at the Guangxi regional branch of the oil company.