As reported here on February 25 China’s central government has given the nod of approval to China’s first international and regional economic cooperation zone in Guangxi. The construction of the Beibu Gulf Economic Zone began in 2006. Now, with this approval, the Beibu Gulf Economic Zone will be formally incorporated into national development strategies.

The Beibu Gulf Economic Zone covers six coastal cities along the Beibu Gulf. It integrates the cities of Nanning, the region’s capital, Beihai, Qinzhou, Fangchenggang, Chongzuo and Yulin.

Qinglin Jia, China’s top political advisor said in a statement, ‘The state will adopt policies and measures to support mechanism innovation, rational industry layout and infrastructure construction in the Beibu Gulf Economic Zone.’

Perhaps more importantly the Guangxi municipality has pledged RMB100 billion yuan ($14 billion) investment over the next five years for building and repairing 2,500 kilometers of railways to form a network hub in the area.

Officials say that the Beibu Gulf Zone will serve as the logistics base, business base, processing and manufacturing base and information exchange center for China-ASEAN cooperation.

Zhenghui Peng, professor of Peking University, Beijing, said in a statement, ‘Beibu Gulf Zone may turn out to be a new economic lead in driving China’s coastal economy because Guangxi boasts so many advantages.

‘For one thing, as the only land and sea link between China and ASEAN, Beibu Zone will benefit from the rapid economic development of both and the heating-up of China-ASEAN relationship.

‘For another, Guangxi connects China’s east, centraland west. China’s sustainable economic development entails “industries complementing each other” and “traffic connectivity”, which will bring tremendous opportunities to Guangxi.’
Source: Emerging China

Qilu Software Park, the high-tech zone established in November 1995 was identified two years later by the Ministry of Science and Technology identified as the first national ‘State Torch Program software industrial base.’

Three years after that it as officially recognized as a ‘national software industrial base.’

Qilu Software Park covers 650 square kilometers which is kept pretty green.

The Industry Area is 320,000 square meters; research and development base 270,000 square meters; 400,000 square-meter production base for electronic products; Training 150,000 square meters; facilities (including residential) 800,000 square meters. And the rest is green.

Qilu Software Park adheres to the principle of ‘creating an environment to stimulate the industry, promoting development and enhancing’ the park development.

Qilu Software Park, after 10 years of development, has 413 enterprises. Since 2000, economic indicators have risen at a rate of over 50% a year. Software Parks in 2005 the total income from technology, industry and trade enterprises will reach RMB24.4 billion.

An example of what is happening.

Jinan Yinquan Technology the wholly owned subsidiary of China VoIP & Digital, has received two governmental awards which were granted earlied this month at the Qilu Software Park Annual Honor Conference 2007.

The two awards are the 2007 Top Growth Enterprise Award and the 2007 Excellent Enterprise for Statistical Work. In addition, the General Manager of the company, Mr. Wang Qinghua, was awarded the 2007 Special Contribution Individual Award of Enterprise Union for his outstanding achievements as the Deputy Director of Communications Technology Union of China International ICT Innovation Cluster.

Yinquan received the most awards among the 500 enterprises in Qilu Software Park.

Which is all very praiseworthy. What is interesting is some of the direction it is going.

China VoIP & Digital Telecom offers Voice over the Internet Protocol telecommunications services in China through its wholly owned subsidiary Jinan Yinquan Technology.

You can probably make the case that in three years from now all overseas calls will be VoIP which will have a higher quality of sound and a greater certainty of connection than traditional methods which cost much more. Much of China’s innovation in this are will come from Gilu Software Park.
SiurceL: Qilu Soft

Microsoft China plans to set up an IT training center in Wuxi to turn out skilled professionals to work in the city’s emerging IT industry.

The Chinese branch of Microsoft and the Wuxi government have signed a deal to establish the training program.

Wuxi New District, the city’s hi-tech zone, will provide infrastructure for the training center, while Microsoft will bring the technical platform and program. The center is expected to offer professional IT training to 10,000 students a year. Wuxi New District is located between the Yangtze River and Taihu lake, the third largest fresh water lake in China and is about 80 miles west of Shanghai.

Yang Weize, Party chief in Wuxi, said it is committed to developing the city into the country’s leading outsourcing center.

Wuxi plans to have 100 companies providing international outsourcing services and exporting software by 2010. Each company will employ at least 2,000 staff and will have an export volume of $30 million.

The city’s per capita GDP is expected to surpass $10,000 this year and the manufacturing industry still dominates the local economy.
Source: China Daily

A blueprint for the redevelopment of Fengxian District in south Shanghai will increase the urbanization of the area, build new industrial areas and encourage tourism by taking advantage of the area’s natural beauty. Seems an ambitious plan. But if they could do it to Salford in England then anything is possible.

The new blueprint shows the district’s appearance will be greatly changed, introducing a more appealing environment for both residents and business.

Plans for the district aim to change Fengxian from a rural district into part of the urban area of Shanghai by 2020.

The 8,893 villages scattered around the district will be gradually merged, and 22 towns will be reduced to eight.

A new model introduces the Nanqiao New City which is a classic Chinese industrial city, seven towns and 30 central villages with distinctive water features. he new city of Nanqiao is being designed to an industrial city can accommodate 400,000, about 40% of the district’s population.

Foreign experts have been invited to submit designs for the residential area and central towns.

The town of Nanqiao new town as a very important industrial city is an important part of the development plan. Based on the concept of “new urbanism,” the district plans to bring residents quality lifestyle in a pleasant environment. The district government is working hard encourage some 100,000 farmers into the district’s new towns.

This has been done before.

The one the writer knows the best is Port Sunlight in England. It was purpose built by William Hesketh Lever (later Lord Leverhulme) starting in 1888 for the employees of Lever Brothers soap factory (now part of Unilever). The name is derived from Lever’s most popular brand of cleaning agent, Sunlight.

Port Sunlight contains 900 Grade II listed buildings, and was declared a Conservation Area in 1978. Port Sunlight has been informally suggested for World Heritage Site status to protect it from development. And the writer has worked there and it is a delight. So it is certainly possible.

In blueprints for the new round of development, industry will take a prominent role in the district’s economic development, with industrial zones to build electricity distribution equipment, fine chemicals, logistics and manufacturing.

These four industrial zones are expected to house 80% of the district’s enterprises by the end of 2005.

The 33.38-square-kilometer Fengpu industrial Park is designed to become a model to develop modern industrial. Shanghai Fengpu Industrial Park is the only one which includes the industrial park and export processing zone in Shanghai.
Source: China Industrial City

Akzo Nobel, perhaps the world’s leading paint and chemical provider, has formed a new enterprise to create a large China production base in the eastern Zhejiang Province.

The new chemical enterprise, Akzo Nobel Chemicals (Ningbo) has been set up in the chemical industrial zone of Ningbo City’s Zhenhai District.

The enterprise’s main products, chelates and ethenamine, are expected to start being manufactured in 2009 and 2010, respectively, with an initial investment of $385 million.

Robert Margevich, Akzo Nobel Functional Chemicals B.V., president, promised the Dutch-based company would use cutting-edge technologies and observe the strictest health, safety and environmental standards at the new plant.

Deputy Consul General Leo Linscheer of the Netherlands Consulate General in Shanghai said Akzo Nobel had set up more than 20 factories and workshops since it entered the Chinese market in the 1980s. The further economic cooperation would deepen the friendship between the two nations.
Source: Manufacturing Business Technology

China has been reforming its policies in an effort to discourage overseas investment in energy-intensive, polluting and resource-based ventures — the so-called smokestack industries.

Delivering a work report to the 1st session of the 11th National People’s Congress (NPC) on Wednesday, Premier Wen Jiabao made known China’s determination to end its position as a global center of such industries.

He said, ‘We will limit or ban foreign investment in projects that are energy-intensive or highly polluting, limit or ban foreign investment in some areas of resource exploitation, and correct illegal practices for attracting foreign investment.’

Zhang Yansheng, chief of the Institute of Foreign Economics affiliated with the National Development and Reform Commission, said: ‘Given the size of the Chinese economy, I believe the international community will benefit from the country’s policy adjustments toward overseas investment in terms of resources, environmental protection and the balance of global trade.’

Overseas investors are now being encouraged to enter fields such as recycling, clean production, renewable energy, environmental protection and efficient use of resources.

They are restricted or banned from entering energy-intensive, polluting sectors or certain certain fields of resource exploitation, and export tax rebates for 1,115 commodities in these sectors have been ended.

Zhang Yansheng said the blind pursuit of foreign funds led to many short-lived smokestack factories that turned out low-end goods.

A report released by the China Council for International Cooperation in Environment and Development in late February disclosed that the number of overseas investors investing in polluting industries accounted for about 30% of overseas-invested ventures in 1995 and 84.19% in 2005.
Source: China View

The China-Singapore Suzhou Industrial Park has made great progress in the past 13 years due to policies encouraging innovation and investment.

The park covers about 4% of Suzhou’s land yet produces 15% of the city’s GDP, 25% of its foreign investment and 30% of foreign trade.

It was built in May 1994 in the east end of Suzhou in Jiangsu province and operates under the principle of ’selective investment’.

It mainly targets capital-intensive, technology-intensive and flagship projects.

A joint project between the Chinese and Singaporean governments, the industrial park has set up a comprehensive network to attract investors and guarantee the park secures multibillion-dollar projects.
The park has recently put more emphasis on projects that highlight science, technology and service.

It has approved over 3,000 foreign-backed companies with total actual foreign direct investment of $13.4 billion. The park’s trade volume has increased to $56.7 billion from a mere several million when it first opened.

It has created more than ten policies to improve innovation and encourage investors to set up research and development centers. It’s also launched plans to encourage intellectual property right protection and lure skilled professionals. It may be a model for industrial parks.
Source: China Daily

Originally, as reported by Xinhua, the plan was that Nokia’s China new headquarters in Beijing would be completed and in use at the end of last year. Missed by a month or so but now it is open and the six-story building has a total floor area even larger that of its world headquarters in Finland.

Shen Jian, communications manager of Nokia China, said the new headquarters will house 2,000 research and development (R&D) and management staff.

The headquarters, R&D center inside and manufacturing base located in the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area in Yizhuang, southeastern Beijing, will form the Nokia China Campus.

The headquarters building started construction in May 2006 with an investment of RMB450 million ($60 million).

The Nokia China Campus and the Xingwang Industrial Park, which is home to almost 20 other electronic companies led by Nokia, will form the most integrated mobile phone production chain in the world.

China has become the largest market of Nokia, the world’s largest mobile phone maker, whose sales and export volume in China exceeded $13 billion in 2006.
Source: China View

China is constructing another civil aerospace center in the Shaanxi province this year after the launch of the initial Shanghai base last year. This marks an increase in China’s effort in its civil aerospace industrialization. The State Development and Reform Commission approved the planning of Xi’an National Civil Aerospace Industrial Base on December 26, 2007.

According to Huafeng Yue, Xi’an deputy mayor of the National Civil Aerospace Industrial Base of Xi’an, it will, when completed, cover 23 square km and will focus on developing satellites, new materials, energies, IT and other technologies. It is stressed that these are all intended as civil applications.

In November 2006, Xi’an and the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation jointly set up Xi’an Aerospace Science and Technology Industrial Base.

Its focus has always been the development of the civil space industry.

Hongzhuan Zhao, a Xi’an official responsible for the planning of the base, said, ‘The main industries in Xi’an base include equipment manufacturing, software and service outsourcing, new materials and solar photovoltaics.

‘Xi’an base industry planning is consistent with the national strategic overall planning, which lays foundation for the upgrade of Xi’an base to a national base.’

A press release from deputy mayor Huafeng Yu, said, ‘The setting up of national aerospace base in Xi’an, an ancient city renowned for its terracotta warriors, is a firm indicator of China’s commitment to boosting the aerospace industry infrastructure beyond major cities. Xi’an will give full support to the national base through tax concessions, preferential policy in land use and infrastructure building.’

As the core of the Yangtze River Delta radiation region, Shanghai National civil aerospace industry base aims to drive regional economic development through market-oriented space industry operation. Xi’an officials expect Xi’an Base to exert greater influence.
Source: Emerging China

China has named 30 new state-level high-tech industrial bases which brings it to a total of 65.

The announcement was made by Vice Premier Zeng Peiyan (seen in our illustration) in Beijing when he awarded the State-level High-tech Industrial Bases to 30 cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Xi’an and Tianjin.

The 30 bases include six that are multi-purpose and 24 that specialize separately in civil aviation, new energy resources, microelectronics, information and biology.

It is generally accepted that the high-tech bases have played an important role in transforming the economic growth of China and upgrading the industrial structure. Moving, as it were, from a total dependence on agriculture and fossil fuel burning heavy industry to relatively clean and light power usage high tech.

Last year, the output of the high-tech sector was RMB1.91 trillion yuan ($269 billion), 7.8% of China’s gross domestic product.

Meanwhile, high-tech exports came to $347.8 billion, nearly 30% of the nation’s total exports.

The industrial output and exports had risen at average annual rates of 21.5% and 37.7%, for the seven years leading up to 2007.
Source: Window of China