In a county next to Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, an old aviation center has plans to turn itself into a large industrial zone with hundreds of millions of yuan in potential output value. The only question is, how to make the best use of such a large area.

"For years, the airport has contributed a lot to the economy of western China, but now we've got a more ambitious plan to build an international high-tech industrial hub, as part of China's western development plan, and take full advantage of its convenient location and modern facilities," explained Gao Zhijian, the county's Party chief.

Airport economy

Chengdu got the idea about expanding the old 5.1-square-kilometer Shuangliu Airport and logistics park in 2010. It wanted to build a much larger 38 sq km area, as one of 13 industrial zones directly under city government administration.

But, just how to do it was a tough question for Shuangliu county decision makers. After a lengthy series of discussions, they hit upon a reasonable way to manage the problem.

The group of officials contacted Netherlands Airport Consultants BV and the Chengdu Planning and Design Institute to handle the strategic research and overall planning of the project, and the job was done by the end of 2010.

Some of the planning concepts involved high-level industries, city-airport integration, establishing a traffic hub, and a garden-like environment, while making best use of available resources, including the airport, airline companies, and subways.

Once the planning problem was solved, the next issue was how to manage an international complex of this type.

So, a new company was set up in September 2010, with 500 million yuan ($78.4 million), to handle the overall design and construction work.

At the same time, some traditional industries, manufacturing in particular, were finding the Shuangliu plan attractive. In all there were 38 projects, 12 of them now in operation, involving a total of 5 billion yuan.

A second runway and cargo center were added. The existing streets and roads were well suited for logistic and other facilities and made transportation convenient.

In 2011, the zone is expected to have 3.5 billion yuan in fixed assets investment, 41.2 billion yuan in sales, and pay 1.8 billion yuan in taxes.

By the end of 2015, it hopes to increase its assets to 8.7 billion yuan, sales to 100.3 billion yuan, and taxes to 4.5 billion yuan.

Over the next five years, the Chengdu international airport complex expects to become a major traffic hub for western China, and a new force in the city's economy.

(China Daily 12/09/2011 page60)