Shanghai to Enhance Ties with Western AreasShanghai is giving full play to its integrated functions as an economic centre to help develop China's western regions, according to Jiang Guangyu, deputy secretary-general of the Shanghai municipal government, at a forum at the Shanghai International Industry Fair.The city, which is the finance, trade and science and technology centre of East China, can guide capital and human resources, and new and advanced technology into western areas. In the Ninth Five-Year Plan period (1996-2000), Shanghai established co-operative ties with four targeted regions, Yunnan Province, the Three Gorges area and the autonomous regions of Tibet and Xinjiang. Shanghai invested more than 483 million yuan (US$58 million) in 134 economic co-operative projects in these four target regions during that period. The city also selected 284 cadres and young volunteers who have gone to these regions to help poverty-stricken people and organized a workforce of more than 5,000 to help develop the regions. Shanghai has agreed on a further 502 co-operative projects with local governments or enterprises in the other seven provinces or regions that make up the west. The amount of money being invested by the city in the region will total 29.86 billion yuan (US$3.6 billion). Of the 502 co-operative projects, over 197 involve the transference of new and advanced technologies, valued at 3.24 billion yuan (US$390 million). During the fair, Shanghai Guantong Technology Consulting Co Ltd reached a 9 million yuan (US$1.1 million) deal with Guiyang Xintian Pharmaceutics Co Ltd of Guizhou Province to transfer the technology to produce three types of medicines. |
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