Jiaxing City in East China's Zhejiang Province will use preferential policies to attract foreign investors, Vice City Committee Secretary of the Communist Party of China Shou Jiangang, announced Tuesday.

Shou Jiangang

Jiaxing, 96 kilometers away from Shanghai, China's economic powerhouse, has many regional advantages, according to Shou.

While the secretary admitted that Shanghai's "173 Plan" released in April to lure investors to its suburbs is a great challenge for Jiaxing, he also said that Jiaxing has several advantages over Shanghai.

Shou argued that Jiaxing's infrastructure is better than that of the Shanghai suburbs, the cost of investing will be lower and the city can enable investors to enjoy both the conveniences of a large metropolis and intimacy of a small city.

Moreover, Shou noted that investors will enjoy more preferential policies than in the Shanghai suburbs.

According to Shou, Zhejiang Province is planning to set up a Hangzhou Bay Economic Development Area in Jiaxing to compete with Southern Jiangsu Province and Shanghai.

Furthermore, the provincial government promised to offer the new development area more preferential policies than those offered by Shanghai in the "173 Plan," including a preferential enterprise income-tax rate for a national-level economic development zone.

Reporters listen to introductions about Jiaxing.

In the last few years, foreign investment in Jiaxing has continued to grow steadily. Last year, contractual foreign investments in Jiaxing topped US$2.089 billion, ranking second among the cities in Zhejiang Province. The actual foreign investment for last year hit US$481 million, up 77 percent from the same period last year. In the first nine months of the year, the contractual foreign investment in Jiaxing reached US$1.47 billion, up 82.8 percent year-on-year; actual foreign investment hit US$506 million, 80.9 percent over the same period last year.

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