The Chengdu High-Tech Industrial Development Zone is home to more than 23,000 companies. Provided to China Daily

LCD TV factory located in the zone.

Shared-research center for the zone's companies.

An industrial development zone in Chengdu, Sichuan province and precision machinery has been attracting more investment from China and abroad thanks to its pillar industries - electronic information, biomedicine, and precision machinery - and the support of the central and local governments.

The Chengdu High-Tech Industrial Development Zone (CDHT) was opened in 1988, with State Council approval, as one of the first group of State-level high-tech zones.

The 130-square-kilometer zone has grown into a center for a large number of multinationals and Chinese companies and ranks fourth among the country's 54 State-level high-tech zones.

It has more than 23,000 companies, 900 of them foreign invested, and more than 50 Fortune 500 companies such as Intel, Dell, and IBM.

In 2010, the zone's industrial added-value output was worth 123.5 billion yuan ($19 billion) and total industrial output, 274 billion yuan.

In the first six months of this year, its industrial output reached 65.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 32 percent.

Its three pillar industries account for more than 80 percent of industrial output.

The zone ranks first in the central and western parts of China in the scale and technology of its integrated circuit (IC) production and it has at least 80 IC companies, such as Intel and Texas Instruments, giving it a fully integrated production chain.

The zone also supports the photoelectric display and software industries and Chengdu is now home to 11 State-level software research centers, most of them in the zone.

The city is also the country's second largest information security products center and the third largest computer game research and development center. It has registered at least 650 software companies, which employ more than 80,000 people.

In 2010, sales of software and related outsourcing services earned the zone 40 billion yuan, a 33-percent increase from the previous year. Software exports amounted to $250 million, a year-on-year increase of 19 percent.

The zone also saw an electronic terminal breakthrough in 2010, when Foxconn, one of the world's largest electronic products manufacturers, set up a plant in the zone, in October.

The plant's main product is the iPad, Apple Co's popular tablet. Dell, the world's third largest PC company, has established its second China production base in the zone and the domestic PC giant Lenovo chose the zone as the location of its western industrial base. This makes Chengdu the fourth largest portable PC producer in China.

Biomedicine is another powerful development area, and at least 200 biomedical companies had moved to the zone by the end of 2010. Fourteen of them have annual sales of more than 100 million yuan.

Favorable conditions

The zone is attracting these companies in no small measure by its geographical and transportation advantages and it has become the top choice for companies wanting to get into markets in western regions.

To make itself more efficient, it has added a service center that provides quick service for companies in the zone to save time in getting government approval for projects.

The zone itself attributes its success to three things - talent, environment, and consumers.

The first of these comes primarily from universities and research institutes in Chengdu, which have a large number of high-quality, tech-savvy graduates each year.

CDHT has also opened offices in the United States and the United Kingdom in an attempt to help overseas Chinese seek business opportunities there.

Entrepreneurs who returned from abroad set up 30 companies in the first half of this year, the zone reports.

Strong research and innovation capacity, ample supply of human resources, convenient network of transportation and logistics, huge market potential and pleasant living environment all make Chengdu one of the best investment destinations in China.

The costs of living and property prices are lower than on the East Coast and it is one of western China's largest cities, with a vast population of more than 14 million.

The country's plan to develop the western parts of China with preferential policies has been a boon for Chengdu and companies wanting to settle there.

(China Daily 09/27/2011 page12)