Functional Zone-Promotion Strategy Implemented in Zhuhai

This reporter, Zhao Jingan, discovered in Zhuhai on July 27 that the Zhuhai High-Tech Industry Development Zone, after undergoing readjustment, has taken on a new look.

This "new and high-tech zone" has become a hot spot for domestic and foreign investment. In the first half of this year, 67 projects were introduced, newly added investment amounted to 2.8 billion yuan. This represents a epitome of the "functional zone-promotion strategy" being carried out in Zhuhai City. The content of this strategy is as follows: Reliance on policy advantage should change into functional advantage for economic development., the "economic functional zone-promotion strategy" is taken as the "tongs", and more pragmatic readjustment should be made in development strategy and other aspects.

The five functional zones each with specific features and development functions are currently the most potential economic growth points in Zhuhai. These five functional zones are: the high and new technological zone, bonded zone, ocean development zone, Hengqin development zone and port-adjacent industrial zone. The initial anticipated goal of the "functional zone-promotion strategy" is to lay a sound foundation for Zhuhai City to basically realize socialist modernization in 2007.

Structural innovation is a "catalyst". Zhuhai City has first granted city-level economic management authority to the economic functional zone, it has published in succession documents such as The Provisional Regulation on the Management Authority Over the Zhuhai City Economic Functional Zone and the Method of Management Over the Sci-Tech Industrial Park in Zhuhai's State High and New Technology Zone. There are 13 management departments which have delegated their power to the high and new technological zones and various park areas. The new mechanism put into operation has benefited the enterprise, just like a fish getting to the water. The Harbin Industrial University Group invested 900 million yuan in the establishment of a "numerical code port" in the high and new technological zone, creating a high efficiency featuring the signing of contract on the first day, drawing up a blueprint on the second day and starting construction on the third day.

Preferential policy serves as a "lever". The Zhuhai city government pursues a preferential policy toward foreign-funded enterprises and sci-tech enterprises , which enter into the industrial parks of State high and new technological zones and bases, in the aspects of taxation, the income and expenditure of foreign exchange, the proportion of internal and external sales of products and the introduction of personnel, the city also implements preferential prices for projects, which enter the industrial park. These projects can enjoy different grades of preferential land price in accordance with the grade of technology and the amount of investment. Thanks to these measures, business people have come in a steady stream. For example, in the Nanping Industrial Park, 98 percent of the first-stage land have been sold, and the second-stage land has been sold to where the land has been leveled. Of the 63 projects introduced, 50 percent have reached either the international or domestic advanced level. Some products have filled the domestic gaps. A group of "parks within the park, and districts within the park" with distinguishing industrial and regional features have taken shape. These include space science and technology, park for returned Chinese students to start pioneering undertakings, the EU Investment Demonstration Zone, the Taiwan E-Sci-Tech Industrial Park and the United Nations TIPS Development Zone.

Policy support provides a guarantee. The city government makes the sci-tech development fund, and the outlay for science and technology and for technical renovation tilt toward economic functional zones and actively promotes the establishment of a financial service system for risk investment , loan guarantee for small and medium-sized enterprises and financial discount.

The "functional zone-promotion strategy" has led to the formation of "investment marshland" in the functional zones, which become the main battlefield for Zhuhai's economic development. The various functional zones have begun to give prominence to their roles of promotion, radiation and demonstration exerted in the city's economy.



This report is accompanied by the editor's notes, which read in part as follows: The beautiful Zhuhai is breeding a new tide: The five functional zones have become new economic growth points and the "tongs" of Zhuhai's economic readjustment. A few years ago, the city Party committee and government concentrated on studying the law governing city economic development and, in a pragmatic attitude, sought the fulcrum for starting up the economy, thereby selecting and deciding on the "functional zone-promotion strategy". As a result, Zhuhai's economy had its own content. Its advantageous location of facing the vast sea and neighboring Hong Kong and Macao provide it with a natural stage, its infrastructure facilities have ample scope to play their role. The formation of the "investment marshland" predicts that in the new century Zhuhai will hopefully become a hot spot for development in the Pearl River Delta.



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