Ruzhou has adopted a brand strategy to accelerate the optimization of its industrial structure and the transition of its economic development pattern so as to improve its economic strength and core competitiveness.

The city’s gross domestic product reached 11.6 billion yuan ($1.7 billion) in the first half of 2010, up by 13% from the same period last year. Its fiscal income achieved 51.2 million yuan ($7.6 million). The general budget income of the year was 449 million yuan ($66.8 million), a 13.3% increase over the same period last year, keeping a stable and reasonably rapid pace for the city’s economic development.

Ruzhou’s robust economic growth against the background of the global economic crisis has been attributed to the city’s brand strategy. Depending only on coal mining industry in the past, Ruzhou’s economy now enjoys five pillar industries, namely in energy and chemical engineering, equipment production, food processing, metallurgy and building materials—guarding the city’s economy much more effectively against the risk of financial crises.

The Ruzhou government has mainly adopted four measures in promoting its brand building: First, based on its abundant mineral resources, Ruzhou gave priority to the development of high-tech industrial products, such as silicon products, and photoelectron and biochemical medicine, so as to increase the city’s core competitiveness. At the same time, Ruzhou also improved its creativity for the implementation of major scientific and technological programs and research.

Second, the Ruzhou government has led and encouraged companies to invest more in scientific and technological innovations to increase its self-renovation capabilities. Ruzhou has also established an ideal environment for new brands’ development.

Lastly, Ruzhou has attached great importance to the growth of brands now still invisible, particularly Henan Quju opera and Ru porcelain. Ru porcelain was selected as an exclusive gift for the 2010 Shanghai Expo. Many TV series and films were also shot to demonstrate Ruzhou’s unique and time-honored cultures, injecting new energy and vitality into the city’s regional economy.

In the near future, Ruzhou will take further steps to promote its new brands and set up several industrial brand zones, attracting more production factors by introducing new tax policies for non-local investors. The Ruzhou government intends to forge the city into an economic attraction in Henan’s midwest by mandating more government subsidies, pulling up domestic demand, and making a breakthrough in the region’s economic development.