Foreign industrial zones eyed for investment

East China's Jiangsu province will establish three or four industrial zones in countries along the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road by the end of 2020, according to the provincial government.

The government has created a plan for investment in infrastructure, economic cooperation and energy exploitation.

Many companies in the province have invested in other countries. An industrial zone in Cambodia, financed by Hodo Group and several other companies in Wuxi city, has attracted 27 companies in the province.

An oil refinery program, with an investment totaling 7.76 billion yuan ($1.25 billion), has been structured by Changshu’s Menglan Group in Russia. The yearly refinery capacity will reach 6 million tons by 2017.

Other investment programs will establish photovoltaic companies in Pakistan, a ferro-nickel industrial park in Indonesia and textile factories in Uzbekistan.

According to the provincial government, the total trade between the province and the 64 countries along the “One Belt One Road” initiatives in 2014 reached $116.4 billion, which accounted for 20.6 percent of the province's total volume of imports and exports.

By the end of 2014, one third of the 64 countries' investments in China went to Jiangsu province.