High-Tech to Shrink Economic Gap Between Eastern and Western ChinaOfficials from China's western region agree that high-tech industry will play an important role in helping the region to catch up with the fast economic development of eastern China.The officials reached this conclusion after attending Beijing International High-Tech Industries Week, which ended on May 12. At the early stage of the country's long-term strategy of developing the vast western region, ways to shorten the economic gap between western and eastern China was one of the hottest topics for both government officials and economic experts during the event. Ningxia, an inland ethnic autonomous region in northwest China, has signed an agreement with the state of Utah in the United States to jointly set up a comprehensive digital port, covering diversified websites to provide services on information and e-commerce to governmental departments, industries, enterprises and individual Internet users in the twelve provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities of the western region. The project is a major part of Ningxia's plan for economic development in the 21st century, said Zhang Laiwu, assistant chairman of the autonomous regional government. Matthew McConkie, commerce representative of Utah in Beijing, said that Utah is in an inland area of the United States, similar to Ningxia, and has experienced a backward era in the past. "Now, the state has become one of the most developed areas in America thanks to the booming of its three high-tech pillar industries--software, medical instruments, and biological engineering," the official said. This can be used for reference in the development of western China, McConkie said. But China's western region can no longer depend on the favorable policies and processing-oriented industries which helped boost the economy of the coastal area in the 1980s and 1990s, Zhang noted, and only profitable high-tech industries will gain an economic leap for the region. Ningxia is expected to gain by starting various high-tech projects such as the digital port, Zhang said. During Beijing High-Tech Week, many provinces and cities in the western region mapped out development plans, such as the high-tech agricultural promotion drive in Shaanxi Province, international cooperation in e-information and bio-medicine in Sichuan Province, and a Sino-U.S. TV set production line in Gansu Province. The areas will not only rely on cheap natural and labor resources for economic profits, but will also attract domestic and overseas investment by reform of the tax system and an improved environment, according to the official. In Yangling of Shaanxi Province, the country's only state-level agricultural high-tech demonstration zone, some 4.000 technicians are helping local farmers in an effort to improve agricultural technology and pollution-free farming techniques in the fields of biological breeding, water-saving irrigation, and soil conservation. These efforts have not only greatly improved high-tech developments in the areas, but also have attracted many investors from across the world and the signing of trade contracts involving large investments, he added. Cooperation with the western region will ensure China's eastern region and overseas business people a good opportunity to find a large potential market and plenty of room for expansion. |
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