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Yangpu: "Special Zone" to Take Off in Hainan SEZ
Construction on a Sino-Indonesian paper pulp mill and a Sino-American flour mill with investment of billions of US dollars started recently in Yangpu, Hainan Province, marking the revival of a long-dormant economic development zone on Hainan Island.
Covering 31 sq. km, Yangpu Economic Development Zone is too small to be seen in the map of China, but it was once well known for its most lenient and favorable policies granted by the central government.
It was an only zone in the country that is entitled to preferential policies of special economic zones, bonded zones and economic development zones together.
Situated in the northwest corner of Hainan Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in south China, Yangpu was used to be the "special zone" in Hainan SEZ. It was regarded as the barometer of Hainan for it was the most important industrial area in the province.
Yangpu was badly stricken by the financial crises sweeping the southeastern Asia, which greatly hampered the initiatives from overseas financial groups. Hainan SEZ also experienced a winter time between 1995 and 1998.
Now with the recovery of the economy in Southeast Asia and the rapid economic growth in China, Hainan SEZ, including Yangpu Economic Development Zone, has entered a phase of adjustment for economic recovery.
Both Hainan and Yangpu are at a stage of transformation, said Chi Fulin, president of the Hainan Reform and Development Academy.
As Hainan will become an important processing base of natural gas in the next century, Yangpu is expected to be built into the largest base for storage, processing and export of natural gas in south China.
Attracted by the blueprint, investors are re-turning their eyes on Yangpu.
Yangpu began to talk with world investors this year, though it used to depend on state's preferential policies upon it.
"Yangpu remains the locomotive of Hainan's economic growth", Chi added.
It may act as an experiment zone for the SEZ in system renovation, introducing new economy and technology, and combining itself with the international operation mechanism, he said. Yangpu is the first area in Hainan to operate e-business and e-banking services.
Yangpu Economic Development Zone (EDZ) was founded in 1992. The Chinese government attached great expectation on it for building a new Yangpu as an international center to distribute processed products and a freight-handling port by taking advantage of its location in the core area of the Asia-Pacific sphere and adjoin to the international ocean shipping lanes.
With China's efforts to open wider gate to the outside world, Yangpu gradually lost its original privilege toward absorbing overseas investment, said Mao Zhijun, vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of Hainan Provincial People's Congress.
There are two high buildings with modern office equipment standing side by side at the entrance of the Yangpu EDZ. They were built in 1996 to greet foreign-funded enterprises, but still almost empty, said Zhu Xuancheng, director general of the administration of the development zone.
Anyway, Yangpu has been developed into a region that is suitable for further construction, he said.
Zhang Yunan, who came to Yangpu in 1995 and is now in charge of overseas business bidding in the zone, said that in the early 1990s, investors swarmed here though it took them more than half a day to drive to Yangpu from Haikou City, capital of Hainan, on poor roads.
Today's Yangpu has better-equipped ports crossed by several high-quality highways and expressways.
Zhang said that there must be more investors come to open their business here with the increasing recovery of the local economy, for more and more investors are gaining confidence in Yangpu's future.
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