Outline

Ge, who has worked as Chengdu's mayor for five years, told China Daily that a series of construction projects - including a railway, expressway, airport and logistics center - will transform Chengdu into a traffic and transportation hub for China's central and western regions.

The Standing Committee of the Chengdu Party Committee has approved an outline to guide the future development of the city's transport sectors. It is the first city in the country's central and western region to map out such a plan.

According to the outline, industries that will benefit include:

Infrastructure construction

Chengdu's existing infrastructure is inadequate for a traffic and transportation hub, which requires a comprehensive system of railways, expressways, airlines and other support facilities. The outline focuses overwhelmingly on infrastructure construction.

According to the outline, seven more railways and expressways and two more inland navigation lines will be built.

The projects are indeed alluring to infrastructure construction companies. Some experts estimate the capital needed may reach hundreds of billions of yuan, though some projects are still under discussion.

But competition for a piece of the action is fierce. Local companies must take prompt measures to improve management and production standards if they want a share, the city government has told them.

Logistics

"The logistics industry in Chengdu faces two main problems," says Liu Jianxiong, secretary-general of the Chengdu Logistics Association.

"The first is cost increases due to rising labor and fuel prices. The other is scale, as small- and medium-sized enterprises lacking modern management make up the majority."

The construction of a traffic and transportation hub will directly benefit the logistics industry.

According to Liu, a convenient traffic network will attract more logistics businesses to Chengdu, providing the potential to form large-scale enterprises.

Companies now in operation will also be driven to improve their management in order to survive in new market environment.

"In that case, the cost of logistics will be reduced," Liu says.

Manufacturing

Due to rising costs in labor and raw materials, more manufacturers have in recent years moved from southeast China to the central and western regions. Chengdu has already received many shoe and toy manufacturers from the Pearl River Delta.

But the city faces the challenge of enabling them to be as competitive as they were before their move.

In response more international air routes will serve the city and two transport networks will be opened through Luzhou and Yibin ports to the Yangtze River and on to the sea.

Direct cargo trains from Chengdu to Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Qingdao, Lianyungang and Tianjin will begin operation to improve transport for manufactured goods. It currently takes five or six days to move goods by train from Chengdu to Shanghai and eight or 10 days by ship. Once the inland hub is completed, the process will take just 48 hours.

Aviation

The outline reveals some significant plans for the development of the city's aviation industry.

Shuangliu Airport, the fifth-largest in China - transporting 16 million passengers annually - will continue to expand.

A second runway and a new departure hall are under construction. The finished second runway will be capable to land an Airbus A380, currently the world's largest commercial airplane.

Chengdu also plans to build a second airport in Jintang with six runways. There is now an obvious gap between Chengdu and aviation centers like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

But Chengdu has a geographic advantage in the western region. With Chengdu as a transfer station to other cities, it presents an opportunity for feeder airlines. Flights from Chengdu to feeder airports such as Daocheng, Kangding and Leshan will be opened in the near future. Ten more international flights directly to Chengdu will make Chengdu the city with the most international flights in western China.

Tourism

In the opinion of Shao Fan, manager of the Chengdu Guangda Travel Agency, the two most important factors attracting tourists are rich tourism resources and a convenient transportation system to "enable tourists to experience more with less time".

Statistics show that during the first three quarters of 2007, the number of domestic tourists visiting Chengdu reached 39.7 million, a 16.3 percent year-on-year increase, the income from which was 3.092 billion yuan.

A railway from Chengdu to popular tourist attractions such as Jiuzhaigou and Lhasa will also be opened. Meanwhile, Sichuan province plans to build an expressway network with Chengdu as the center. The 8,000-km expressway will link Chengdu to all the province's cities with a population above 150,000.

Real estate

Real estate and urban development are indirect beneficiaries of the plan. It will take less than 30 minutes to travel from Jintang to the Chengdu downtown area.

More people will then be willing to work or live in Jintang, which will help reduce pressure on population and traffic in the downtown area and develop the economy in the suburbs. The city's size scale will then grow and real estate will enter a new phase of development.

(China Daily 08/05/2008 page3)