They include plans on attracting better enterprises, helping them get listed on the stock exchange, establishing funds for technological reforms, and re-organizing the city's lay-out.

"Never before have we come up with so many policies on industry. Hangzhou right now is in the later stages of industrialization and it is very important for it to take advantage of the situation we are in right now, when the world is re-organizing its industrial structure, and is gradually moving its manufacturing base to China," said Wang Guoping, the city's Party secretary.

"Industry has long been the main force of Hangzhou's economic growth and tax revenues. No city can develop without strong industry. Including Hangzhou. But, good industry necessarily depends on large-scale enterprises," was the comment from Vice-Mayor Shen Jian.

The city expects to develop several large-scale enterprises over the next five years with annual sales of from 1.5 billion yuan (US$181 million) to 6 billion yuan (US$723 million).

"They will be the lead industry in the city," Shen said.

The policies that encourage them include a 10 per cent annual tax rebate for the better enterprises and a 100 million yuan (US$120,000) fund to support technology.

The first group to be given the special support are 26 large enterprises.

But the new policies also specify property rights reforms, corporate management and personnel reforms.

"We already have some large-scale enterprises that are doing very well, like the Wahaha Group, the Qingchunbao Traditional Medicine Group, the Wanxiang Group (automobile parts), and others in women's clothing and chemical fibres. We hope to have more of these so the city's industry can be helped," Shen said.

In the first six months of this year, Hangzhou had industrial sales of 419.79 billion yuan (US$51 billion), up 18 per cent from the same period last year. This accounted for a third of the city's 12.2 per cent gross domestic product growth over the same period last year, according to Shen.

(China Daily July 30, 2002)