Hefei to lure big city job hopefuls

By Si Tingting (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-05-11 16:45

Workers are preparing an exhibition in Hefei, Anhui province. The province plans to lure export-oriented manufacturing industries. [China Daily

]

It is rare to spot a foreign face on the streets of Hefei, the capital of Anhui province, but this may soon be changing.

Hefei is now poised to join its well-off neighboring cities, such as Shanghai, Hangzhou and Suzhou, all of which have benefited from a closer relationship with the rest of the world.

Anhui province, which lies next to China's economic powerhouse, Shanghai, was traditionally regarded as a labor exporter and occupied one of the last few places in GDP ranking among the country's provinces. But since Anhui's economy is not driven by exports, it is now seizing a chance to emerge as a top Chinese city.

At the Central China Expo 2009, held between April 25 and 28 in Hefei, Wu Cunrong, mayor of Hefei, told reporters that the financial crisis will provide an opportunity for Hefei to make a debut among China's top cities. The city is ambitiously preparing for the reshuffle.

"With the financial crisis, foreign investors are relocating their factories to cheaper places. China scores in terms of land, natural and human resources, and the central and western part of China is more affordable," he said.

In addition to the low cost and rich natural and human resources that Hefei will provide, Wu promised the government will extend much cooperation to foreign investors.

It will provide them with favorable investment conditions, low logistics costs and lots of policy as well as tax incentives.

However, the city regards the environment as more important than the economy. Hefei will not welcome companies that bring pollution, even if they bring big money, the mayor said.

It does not intend to follow its well-off neighbors who opted for a resource-intensive, export-oriented economic development pattern, which brought them quick growth, but a deteriorating environment.

Instead, Hefei will target only environmentally sound and technology intensive industries as its takeoff platform, Wu said.

"We don't want any GDP that is achieved at a price of environmental deterioration," Wu said.

Advanced technology and technology professionals are Hefei's trademarks. The city is the birthplace of the world's first VCD player and has one of China's best technology universities, the University of Science and Technology of China, and was recently named the country's first and only pilot city for technological and creative industries.

According to Wu, half of the city's GDP last year came from the hi-tech industry.

He said he believes the city will benefit more from its expertise in electronics, machinery, biomedicine and auto industries in the future.

Even companies in the province are a happy lot.

For Zhang Bangshu, president of Hefei Rijian Shearing Co Ltd, a subsidiary of Japan's industrial conglomerate Hitachi Ltd, the global financial crisis is somewhat of a blessing.

The company has not only emerged unscathed from the financial chill but it has also benefited in terms of its workforce. Many of the country's top graduates from the best colleges in Beijing and Shanghai are now looking toward Hefei for work with the economic gloom in big cities such as Beijing and Shanghai.

"This year, our college recruitment went very well, with graduates from China's best schools - Tsinghua University and the University of Science and Technology of China - joining us," Zhang said proudly.

"We've never seen that before. The financial crisis has made Hefei a more desirable place in which to work."

Hefei, which lies between the country's underdeveloped western region and its highly developed coastal regions, believes that its role bridging the east and west is important.

A high-speed rail transport network, which will be ready in a few years, will link Hefei with many of the country's top cities.

"When the high-speed rail network is ready, it will take just two hours to get to Shanghai and Hangzhou, and three hours to Beijing," the mayor said. Currently the journeys take about twice as long.