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Zhongshan Special :SOEs play important role in helping build a modern industrial system

By Qiu Yinuo (China Daily)
Updated: 2011-03-30 07:51

Visitors squeeze in to get a look at the exhibition hall adorned with a large picture of Sun Yat-sen, the father of modern China and a Zhongshan native. Qiu Quanlin / China Daily

One key part of this city's move to develop emerging industries, according to a local official, is the investment agreements it has signed with centrally controlled State-owned enterprises (SOEs).

"They (investment agreements) will be an engine for local industrial improvements," explained Ouyang Jinquan, deputy director of the Torch Hi-tech Industrial Development Zone's administrative committee.

Investment project agreements were signed with 12 SOEs on March 2, in Beijing, local government sources have said.

The projects have as much as 71.4 billion yuan in backing, for developing new energy, electric cars, shipbuilding, ocean engineering, and logistics.

They are expected to have an annual industrial value of more than 155 billion yuan when they go into operation, Ouyang said. That could mean that this Pearl River Delta city will get a new industrial zone.

The Torch Hi-tech Zone's industrial output last year was 113.1 billion yuan, which made it the first township-level zone to pass the 100-billion-yuan mark annual industrial output value in Zhongshan.

One of the investors, Beijing's Foton Motor Group, has said it will develop an electric automobile plant here.

Some new electric buses made their debut at the annual Zhongshan Trade and Investment Fair, on Monday.

Work on the electric car plant is expected to begin sometime in the second half of this year, Feng Yirong, vice-mayor of Zhongshan, said.

Work on nine other projects will start construction in the first half of this year, Feng added.

The zone was approved as a State-level torch zone for equipment manufacturing in 2004, and now has more than 30 large projects in operation.

"The next five years will become an important time for the torch zone and new industries. We're building a modern industrial system here," Ouyang went on to explain.

The zone's industrial output is expected to be worth 250 to 300 billion yuan, and, "the investment projects and SOEs will play an important role in helping us reach that goal."

(China Daily 03/30/2011 page14)