Foreign media eyes the 'rising star' in west China

Farmers in Renshou county of Chengdu discuss the master plan for Tianfu new district. Part of the nation's "Go West" strategy, plans for the Tianfu new district envision a livable new city fueled by modern manufacturing, high-end services and a quality lifestyle. Zhang Quanneng / For China Daily

Young girl participates in an art event at the Jinsha Site Museum early this year. Chengdu's cultural industry is expected to be another pillar of the city's fast growing economy. Wang Jun / For China Daily

As a rising star on China's economic landscape, Chengdu's rapid development has caught the attention of overseas media.

The city's achievements in industry, financial services, the creative sector and experiments in privatization of farmland have been reported in a number of foreign outlets.

AFP

Entrepreneurs in China's southwest are dreaming of turning the city of Chengdu into the world's next Silicon Valley as the government encourages more investment outside the booming coastal regions, the AFP reported in December last year.

Small startups as well as big-name western companies have flocked to the metropolis of 14 million people, attracted by cheap labor costs and favorable government investment policies and hoping to tap into China's rapidly expanding consumer market.

And the Silicon Valley dream is becoming reality as the city, already a hi-tech manufacturing hub, seeks increasingly to become a magnet for software development and innovation.

Between one-third to one-half of the iPads sold worldwide are assembled in Chengdu, while computer giant Intel makes up to half of its chips in the city.

Far from the booming coastal regions, Chengdu can offer perks through the government's "Go West" development program, with incentives for startups such as one-year interest-free loans.

So far it has attracted about 29,000 companies to its 130-square-kilometre (50-square-mile) "hi-tech development zone", including about 1,000 foreign enterprises.

Chengdu is also developing a nearby "Software Park" as the city aims to go beyond manufacturing and become a centre of innovation.

With five nearby universities focusing on science and technology, cafes and restaurants around the development zone have become networking hotspots for software programmers.

"The best reason (to come to Chengdu) is the education environment. The region has great universities," Xiong Jie, the director of Thoughtworks, which runs an Internet site for a group of Australian insurance companies, told AFP.

"Only China and India have this talent pool. We have grown very fast, we started with zero people in April and now we have 50."

Chengdu highlights the changing nature of the technology scene in China, where Beijing, Shanghai and the metropolis of Shenzhen near Hong Kong have long been the center for the country's IT industry.

Multinationals have traditionally set up in those areas, initially making products for export but increasingly tapping into the country's lucrative domestic markets.

Global Finance

Global Finance, a monthly magazine in New York, called the capital of Sichuan province "China's new boomtown" in a March 14 article.

"Chengdu is among the most vibrant spots in China despite the overall decline in the country's economic growth this year," said the magazine.

It noted the fourth-largest city in China is getting a boost from two powerful forces - the "Go West" policy from the central government and local government efforts to attract industries.

The central government policy encourages companies and labor to migrate from the more prosperous east coast to western provinces, while industry brought in by the local government is helping Chengdu catch up with costal cities.

"The industries arriving in Chengdu are well positioned for the economic transformation that China is trying to enact - moving from export-driven to domestic consumption", says the Global Finance article.

Chengdu is attracting more value-added service companies while the east coast cities are filled with export-oriented industries that are on the decline, it says.

The Banker

The Banker, a banking and finance resource edited in London, set its sights on ambitious plans for Chengdu Financial City in a story last June.

"Chengdu, the first city in the world to issue paper currency, is today not only a major trading and communications hub, but it is also positioning itself as the core engine for the development of financial services in western China," says the article.

"Much of the CDFC looks similarly green and agricultural like Pudong 30 years ago. But just as Pudong developed seemingly overnight into a megacity, the CDFC now looks set to do the same," wrote Stephen Timewell, editor emeritus of The Banker, who also witnessed the striking changes in Pudong district in Shanghai in the 1980s.

zaobao.com

Zaobao.com, of the Singapore-based Chinese-language newspaper Lianhe Zaobao, reported that the city's creative industry is expected to become another pillar in its fast-growing economy.

Chengdu has announced its ambition to become central and western China's most influential "Capital of Culture" by 2020, said the article.

The city's creative industry is expected to maintain average annual growth of 23 percent or above in the coming years and surpass 70 billion yuan ($11 billion) in revenues by 2015, some 6 percent of the city's GDP, said the report.

To meet the goals, the city government has undertaken a series of innovative measures that includes creative industry business parks and office buildings. The sector is expected to be driven by creative designs, literature and original artwork. Animation and computer games will also become established industries, said the article.