Longxiang Square in the north part of the Changchun National High-tech Industrial Development Area.

A national industrial development area in Changchun, Jilin province, which was one of the first to get State Council approval in 1991, has hit its transition target in a national strategy, after two years of hard work.

The new development strategy for the Changchun National High-tech Industry Development Area was designed in 2009 to expand its influence over the whole of Northeast China.

It was declared China's Development Area with the Largest Potential for 2009 and 2010, by a ratings agency and, in 2010, had an industrial output of more than 200 billion yuan ($31.3 billion).

Over the past two years, it has attracted 10 Fortune 500 companies and 11 companies under central government control. It currently has 150 projects under construction and is home to 3,392 enterprises in all.

Emphasis in the area is on an economy of scale, top products, and international standards and it has an industrial mix of automobile parts, biological science, medicines, optoelectronics, information technology, and new materials.

A lot of efforts has gone into infrastructure construction over the past two years, at a cost of around 20 billion yuan.

The past two years have also seen the completion of 102 kilometers of new roads, or 1.1 times the length added over the previous 18 years.

And it added 6 million square meters of greenbelt, or 3.1 times the figure for the previous 18 years, so 41 percent of the area is covered with vegetation.

Under the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015), the high-tech development area will put its efforts into changing the economic development, with an idea of becoming a national science innovation center.

Development in the area will be backed by investment, as well as innovation and it will work on becoming an internationally recognized high-tech area.

(China Daily 10/25/2011 page10)