High-tech industrial base promotes western China development

By Jiao Meng: 0 Comment(s)Print E-mail China.org.cn, July 22, 2011

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With only an eight-month construction period, an auto assembly factory, with annual production capacity of 310,000 trucks, will begin its trail run in Bijie High-tech Industrial Base in Bijie prefecture of southwest China's Guizhou Province on August 1.

The factory is a second phase of project Guizhou Li Fan Shijun Zhenxing Group, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Yunnan Li Fan Courser Vehicles Co., Ltd. It will start quantity production on September 6.

"We have already persuaded 24 downstream firms to open branches in this base to form an industrial chain,” said chairman of the board Ma Weiliang,

He said the company would also build an R&D center here and it would invest over 3.5 billion yuan (about US$0.54 billion) in total.

Industrialization efforts

It's another attempt to attract mature firms and investments to this industrial base for the benefit of the local population.

As a mountainous area in western China, Bijie has natural weakness in its transportation infrastructure and was left behind in industrialization process that swept the country.

With project planning area of 15 square kilometers, this industrial base was approved by Guizhou provincial government in May, 2010.

At present, the total investment in this base is 20.7 billion yuan (about US$3.21 billion). It has not only attracted auto firms, but also high-tech ones such as SINOVEL, a leading company in wind power industry.

For people's livelihood

"The government has funded over 70 million yuan (about US$10.84 million) to resettle 245 local families and of those, 234 families have moved into their new houses,"said Zhang Tao, an official from the base,"moreover, they can run small business in the first floor near the street."

He introduced detailed measures to increase local employment, such as vocational training, and offering jobs in the base and service industry along with its boom.

"Now we hire about 50% locals in the base, but mainly supporting jobs such as cleaning and installing. I hope the portion could be raised to 80-90%, and they could be hired as industrial workers," he said, "so the firms could save more in human resources and locals get benefits as well."