There was good news from Intel’s chip packaging and testing plant in Chengdu on Jan 9, as the one-billionth chip came off the line, a milestone in plant production. At the same time, there was an investment project of Intel West China Allocating Center settled down at the Chengdu High-tech Industrial Development Zone. Intel has increased its capital in Chengdu three times in the past nine years.

But it’s not the only company that’s optimistic about Chengdu. There was a symposium for Global 500 companies moving to Chengdu that very same day, where Chen Fu, deputy director of the Chengdu Investment Promotion Commission, announced that 207 of the Global 500 had operations in Chengdu, 18 having come in the last year alone. “This was the first time for Chengdu to introduce no fewer than 10 companies from the Global 500 in a year,” Chen explained, and those 18 companies presented a clear picture of the industrial development trend in Chengdu.