A powerhouse of the west
Updated: 2012-04-06 17:10
(m.hwdly.com.cn)
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After 10 years of solid development, China has become the second largest economy in the world, and its western development strategy has made the western part an economic center with great potential. And Chengdu, thanks to its outstanding performance, even during the 2008 financial crisis, has attracted more attention worldwide.
China’s GDP grew 10.3 percent in 2010. At the same time, western China’s GDP rose 13.9 percent and Chengdu’s, 15 percent. In 2011, the city’s GDP reached 685.46 billion yuan ($1.09 trillion), or five times the 2000 figure, for a 15.2-percent increase.
Under China’s western strategy, Chengdu has become a benchmark and a city with great potential. Its economic growth has been the fastest among 12 western provincial capitals. A 2010 report from the State Information Center called Chengdu a powerhouse for western development, a city with many advantages, and the fourth pole of China’s economic development.
The city is holds a sixth of Sichuan province’s population and accounts for 8 percent of western China’s GDP. It can look forward to some unprecedented development opportunities, in the next 10 years of the new century.
In 2010, Premier Wen Jiabao, at the opening ceremony of the 10th West China Expo, in Chengdu, affirmed that the government would stick to its western China development strategy.
Then, in 2011, the State Council approved the Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Region Program and the 12th Five-Year Plan for western development. That economic region has become a key area for regional development, especially the new Tianfu region, which was listed a one of the top five new urban areas in the west.
By the end of 2011, the Chengdu government, in facing regional competition and new challenges, decided on a new development orientation, one “with advantages globally, rapid growth advantages in China, and comparative advantages locally”.
Chengdu’s ambitions reflect its sense of superiority as a commercial logistics, finance, and technological center, as a traffic and communication hub for southwestern China, and as central and western China’s most developed air traffic and railway center.
In 2011, the Chengdu Airport became China’s fourth largest aviation hub, handling 29 million passengers. This year, the Civil Aviation Administration recognized Chengdu Airport as a national aviation hub, on a par with Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.
When the Woori Bank, South?Korea’s second largest national commercial bank, opened a branch in Chengdu, it brought the number of foreign funded banks there to 13, the largest number for central and western China.
Chengdu also has the largest number of foreign consulates in the central and western region, including those of the United States and Germany.
Thanks to its advantages, Chengdu now has representatives of 212 of the global top 500 companies and it can serve 500 million people, within a three-hour drive of the city.
Chengdu now provides one chip for every two, notebook computers, in the world, and more than half of all the world’s iPads.
In 2011, Chengdu will begin work on the new Tianfu zone with the eventual goal of building a new Chengdu. The city has set a course for speeded-up development in close association with neighboring countries and regions.