Guangzhou announces 10 areas ripe for investment

The top leader of Guangzhou, Guangdong province, announced 10 major areas for domestic and overseas investment on Friday, and welcomed investors from across the board: State-owned companies, private businesses and foreign firms.

Wan Qingliang, Party chief of the 16 million-person city, also said Guangzhou, known as "the port that never closed its doors to trade with the outside world", has 409 key construction projects planned between 2013 and 2016.

The projects will stimulate more than 2 trillion yuan in fixed asset investment. This is expected to become the new growth engine for the local economy.

Abundant business opportunities will arise from the 10 major areas, which are: administrative district readjustment; urban area renovation; reform of State-owned enterprises; private economic development; financial innovation; science and technology innovation; development of an open economy; cultural system reform; ecological system reform; and public service system reform.

Guangzhou Mayor Chen Jianhua pledged that his government will deepen reform and build a new system of fair ness and openness for all businesses. Efforts will be made to encourage private capital to hold shares in State-owned projects, develop enterprises with mixed ownership, promote the regrouping of State-owned assets and establish a long-lasting mechanism with which the private sector can invest in key projects in the city.

Private capital will also be channeled into public service sectors of medical care, education, culture and community construction, he said.

In the meantime, the city will apply to establish free trade zones to promote a service and financial sector; make efforts to upgrade the Sino-Singaporean Guangzhou Knowledge City to the country-level cooperation agenda of China and Singapore; support its airport economic zone to be raised to a national aviation economic demonstration area; deepen the reform of a new development model for its national-level Guangzhou development zone; and accelerate building a Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao comprehensive cooperation demonstration zone in the Nansha district of the city, the mayor said.

At Friday's investment promotion fair, which was attended by more than 800 domestic and overseas entrepreneurs, foreign diplomats, scholars and government officials, 136 contracts that were worth 253 billion yuan ($41 billion) were signed. They involved such sectors as automobiles, chemicals, new generation information technology, bio-science and healthcare, new energy and environmental protection, finance and modern logistics, said Pan Jian’guo, director-general of the Guangzhou city development and reform committee.

A number of financial institutions also signed 18 financing contracts worth 443 billion yuan to support the economic development of Guangzhou, he said.

Guangzhou has been experiencing rapid development in the past few years, with gross domestic product hitting more than 1.54 trillion yuan last year, making it the third-largest economic power out of the nation’s large cities, Chen said.

Guangzhou has set as its development concept a low carbon economy, smart city and happy life for its residents, Chen said.

In 2013, it won top ranking by Forbes among all cities on the Chinese mainland in terms of business environment and public services.