Go-west project dusts itself off in arid plateau

A man works in a car plant run by Zhejiang Geely Holding Group in Lanzhou New Zone, Gansu province, Sept 6, 2012. [Photo/Xinhua]

Lanzhou's GDP is poised to stay above 10 percent this year.

As of October, the New Zone had lured about 90 projects. The accumulated corporate investment has been more than 70 billion yuan ($11.2 billion), according to Yuan Zhanting, mayor of Lanzhou, the provincial capital city of Gansu.

In September, Yuan disclosed the municipal government is inviting China's top electronic appliance makers, including Haier Corp, TCL Corp and Konka Group Co to set up manufacturing facilities in an under-construction industrial park in the New Zone.

Currently the largest business operating in the zone is a plant run by Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, a Hangzhou-based carmaker. Geely set up the plant in 2006 when the zone was a city-level industrial park.

"Lanzhou's position as an industrial base in Northwest China will help the city to embrace manufacturing businesses from coastal regions," said Yuan.

Manufacturers in coastal regions are moving production lines to less-developed inland regions because of lower labor costs there, he added.

"The talent available in the provincial capital city will meet the demand of the New Zone. That's one of the reasons why we chose to establish our plant here," said Song Chengwan, project engineer of Sany Group Co.

The nation's leading heavy machinery manufacturer is building a concrete mixer manufacturing plant that will employ 700 people in the center of the zone.

The other reason the 530 million yuan project broke ground in Lanzhou was because of the go-west campaign adopted by the country's manufacturing industry, according to Song.

"The New Zone enjoys a great edge in transportation and will help us to deliver products to the neighboring provinces of Qinghai, Shaanxi and Sichuan, as well as Ningxia Hui, Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang Uygur autonomous regions."

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