GUANGZHOU: Guangzhou municipal authorities will sharpen the city's strategic competitive edge, improve people's living standards, increase the number of its sustainable development projects and upgrade its global image in the next few years.

"With these strategies, the authorities aim to transform Guangzhou into a vanguard of the nation's modernization," municipal Party secretary of Guangzhou Zhu Xiaodan said earlier this week.

Addressing the ninth municipal congress of Party representatives, Zhu said the authorities hope to see an optimized industrial structure with the tertiary sector playing a more important role in the city's economic development by 2010.

They have plans to give a boost to the city's infrastructure and ecological and urban planning, push forward rural development and make Guangzhou an innovative city and a harmonious society.

"The 2010 Asian Games to be held in Guangzhou will be a good opportunity for the city's development, with the further opening up and self-innovations being the driving forces," he said.

Guangzhou Development and Reform Commission Deputy Director Guo Zhiyong said Guangzhou would focus on auto, petrochemical, IT and bio-medicine industries because they were the key manufacturing sector, accelerating the development of the tertiary industrial sectors of finance, logistics, exhibitions and intermediaries for an optimum industrial structure.

Guo said the city would spend a hefty amount on its 16 key infrastructure projects, primarily on those related to the multi-dimensional traffic network.

Projects for the improvement of the environment will get equal attention and capital inputs, the official said.