Coastal economic belt means new growth for Dalian

Dalian Changxing Island Petrochemical Industrial Park Supporting Area

The city of Dalian, Liaoning province, in China's Northeast, has been developing and upgrading its coastal economic belt and industrial parks to provide a new growth point, the Dalian Daily has reported.

In 2011, the city had 19 coastal industrial parks – out of 42 key coastal industrial parks in the province - providing 442.7 billion yuan ($70.88 billion) of regional GDP, or 73.8 percent of the total.

The 19 parks had 384.16 billion yuan in investment, or 60.6 percent of the total for the 42 parks, and 128.16 billion yuan in infrastructure, or 66 percent of the total.

The 19 also had sales of 885.43 billion yuan and paid 88.35 billion yuan in taxes. They are now working on 4,510 projects, with a total investment of 407.1 billion yuan.

Industrial parks concentrate on infrastructure

With funding from the central government, Dalian is working on infrastructures in its key coastal industrial parks and had 107 projects, in 2011, with an investment of 27.4 billion yuan that had provincial government approval and were allocated 931 million yuan.

Thanks to the government support, work has begun on 86 percent of the projects and they have 14.35 billion yuan in investment.

Meanwhile, there has been a new round of park planning, with 19 industrial parks in the city having finished the planning phase and waiting for government approval.

Projects boom

To develop industrial sites and major projects, the 19 key coastal parks have begun a new campaign to attract investment from China and abroad. Dalian has seen new construction work begin in the 19 parks and a growth investment in others.

The Hitachi Fossil Power Plant Manufacturing Base and Huachen Special Vehicle Base are representative of companies making an investment there.

Projects have gone smoothly, with enterprises such as Intel, STX, and BorgWarner continuing to increase investment and more cooperation has come from Fortune 500 companies, such as SK group, Microsoft, Dell, and Itochu. The 19 industrial parks have had 98 projects with over $10 million worth of investment each.

Industrial parks with distinct characteristics

With the idea of creating unique features or developing leading industries, the industrial parks are working on attracting enterprises and industrial groupings. The 19 key coastal industrial parks have developed their own characteristics and a pattern of complementary advantages.

Transformation and upgrade of industrial parks

Industrial parks have been increasing their transformation and upgrades, for example, in the Lvshun Economic Development Zone, which will be upgraded to a national development zone, with 11 other industrial parks applying for the provincial designation.

Meanwhile, nine other industrial parks have been designated key city economic zones and there is a plan to speed up the development of the Puwan New Area, with provincial government backing.