News

National economic plans mean opportunities

By Zhao Ruixue and Sun Jianbin (China Daily)
Updated: 2011-04-26 07:56

Aerial view of the ecologically conscious city of Dongying, in Shandong province, which has plans to capitalize on its rich natural resources. Huang Liping / For China Daily

The port city of Dongying is looking for ways to strengthen its economy by studying national plans for developing the ecology of the Yellow River Delta and maritime business in Shandong province.

China's State Council approved the plans - a Yellow River Delta High-efficiency Ecological Zone in Novermber 2009 and a Shandong Peninsula Marine Economic Zone in 2010, to develop the economy in an environmentally friendly way.

The State Council chose the peninsula last year as a scientific development pilot area for the marine economy. It was China's first economic zone based on maritime development.

The two zones stretch across the city of Dongying, which obviously gives it great development opportunities.

"Dongying is a well-endowed city and the zones will be a great force for economic development," Jiang Jie, the mayor, told China Daily.

The two zones have in fact already brought the city benefits. Last year, it had a GDP of 235.9 billion yuan ($36.1 billion), or 13.4 percent higher than in 2010.

It also had 134.9 billion yuan in fixed assets investment, a growth of 22.6 percent growth, and 10.4 billion yuan in finance revenues, up 29.69 percent.

It is a port city, so it did $8 billion worth of foreign trade, a year-on-year increase of 97.4 percent.

Dongying's development plan calls for its GDP, per-capita GDP, and revenues from finance to double 2010's figures, by 2015. So, by 2020, the city expects to be a dynamic eco-efficient, marine economy zone.

Its industries can compete oilfield equipment, automobiles, electronic information, and new energy. It is planning 124 projects for the next few years, at a cost of 287 billion yuan; 90 of them are already under construction.

Dongying is encouraging local companies to work with major businesses in China and abroad to increase their competitiveness in the petrochemical, oil equipment and tire sectors.

To ensure that it is on the proper eco-friendly development path, the city has strict screening procedures for petrochemical projects, all of which are expected to use the latest technology to deal with pollution.

Port economic zone

Years ago, the vast area around the port was a sort of wasteland, with no one living and working there. These days, however, the area is bustling with large construction projects thanks to the two national strategies.

The more than 400-square-kilometer port has at least 30 enterprises, including the China National Offshore Oil Corp, which has put 3.1 billion yuan into a liquid chemicals dock and logistics park.

Last year, the port zone had 2.6 billion yuan in investment, a year-on-year increase of 38.8 percent. This was profitable for the port, where the GDP was 800 million yuan, a 235-percent increase year-on-year.

The port is expected to be a logistics center for container shipping, petroleum, ores, and other bulk goods, in 10 years, according to Song Yingzhang, deputy head of the zone.

A lot of effort has gone into improving the port facilities, so it now has 16 docks. By 2012, it is expected to have deepwater berths for ships over 100,000 tons, and, by 2015, to be handling 50 million tons of cargo, and double that by 2020.

Eco-development

Dongying is capitalizing on its unique wetland resources to build an ecological tourism area.

The Yellow River Delta Nature Reserve, which covers 153,000 hectares on one of China's largest wetlands, has more than 1,550 types of fauna and provides a natural habitat for almost 300 bird species.

The city plans to spend 3.5 billion yuan over the next five years on forestation on a 106,000-hectare area. When that is completed, 25 percent of the city will be forested.

Thanks to its 413 kilometers of coastline, 120,000 hectares of mudflats, and 40,000 hectares of pasture, Dongying is planning an eco-agricultural area for fish farms and animal husbandry.

Also planned for the next five years are a 6,000-hectare crab pond and a 13,000-hectare sea cucumber farm, as well as 1,300 animal husbandry parks.

In addition, it wants to build 40 parks around farms for leisure and sightseeing activities.

The city has more than 500 agribusinesses and is developing companies to get the goods to market.

Over the next three years, Dongying will make an effort to improve its water and road systems to transform itself into the "Yellow River water city". Its main water project involves integrating its own water system with the Yellow River to develop more scenic spots.

Around 3.4 billion yuan has been spent on water-related construction work and pollution treatment over the past three years.

Dongying port is becoming a logistics center for many areas. Provided to China Daily

(China Daily 04/26/2011 page24)