Historic northwest city invites investment in Shanghai
An automatic production line of the Geely Automobile in Baoji City.
A historic city in northwest China today inked some 7 billion yuan (US$1,059 million) of investment projects with Shanghai and other Yangtze Delta cities.
The investments in 16 projects of Baoji City in Shaanxi Province are mainly in the automobile, tourism and robotics industries in support of China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
“We welcome more local companies to invest in Baoji, which now serves as the gateway of the Silk Road Economic Belt linking Asia, Africa and Europe,” Xu Qifang, Party secretary of Baoji told an investment invitation conference in Shanghai.
As Shanghai and neighboring Yangtze Delta cities relocate heavy industries to inland areas to optimize economic structures and improve the environment, many western regions take it as an opportunity to attract investment and help to develop some remote regions.
The historic city, which thrived in the early Tang Dynasty (618-907), has been developing itself into a major automobile manufacturing base in northwest China. The production line of China’s Geely Automobile Holdings in Baoji has been able to produce 200,000 vehicles per year, or 650 daily, according to Zheng Yafeng, director of the investment promotion bureau of Baoji.
“An SUV can roll off the assembly line every two minutes,” said Liu Tiejiang, deputy manager with the Geely automobile in Baoji.
Baoji government held an investment invitation conference in Shanghai on Tuesday.
Manufacturing and new-energy companies in Shanghai, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Nanjing and Yangzhou today signed contracts to help to develop new energy cars, including new materials as well as electricity cells.
The investment projects will be based in the industrial zones of Baoji’s Chencang District and Caijiapo, known as the “Chinese Singapore.”
Furthermore, the Shanghai Chaotianhong Intelligent Equipment Company will develop an intelligent robotics project in Chencang which features an industrial robotics park covering 90,000 square meters, roughly the size of 11 standard football pitches.
Another local company invested 230 million yuan to build a luxury hotel in Linyou County which has long been a popular tourism destination, dating back to the early Tang Dynasty.
Baoji is considered the gateway between western and eastern China since most trains from Beijing, Shanghai and Xi'an pass through here on their way to Gansu, Sichuan, Xinjiang and Tibet.
The city is famous for the Famen Temple which is home to one of Buddha's finger bones. The area was also home to the legendary Yandi, one of the Han Chinese forefathers.
