Billions of dollars of projects agreed to at Haimen fair

Thirty-six foreign-invested projects worth $1.55 billion in total and 23.87 billion yuan ($3.69 billion) deals funded by Chinese investors were signed at the Haimen Trade and Investment Fair in Nantong, Jiangsu province, on Saturday.

The new deals cover a wide range, from technology upgrades in traditional industries to advanced manufacturing, from high-tech projects with enormous market potential to comprehensive urban property development.

They include a $100 million petro-gas transmission belt project jointly developed by the Haimen Port New Area and a Hong Kong investor, a 250 million yuan new medicine safety evaluation center and an international educational park with investment of $500 million by the Haimen Economic and Technological Zone and investment group F&H Group.

Construction on 20 projects that each have more than 100 million yuan in investment began during the event. They covered emerging industries such as intelligent robots, new materials and biopharmaceuticals.

Among them is a high-end metal processing project with investment of 5 billion yuan, which is expected to begin operation in 2018, with a designed yearly production output of 1 million metric tons of special-purpose steel worth 20 billion yuan.

In addition, a model home textile industrial cluster park with investment by 1688.com was unveiled at a Dieshiqiao e-commerce market in the Haimen industrial zone during the trade and investment fair. Dieshiqiao is a home textile production and commerce hub in China.

The park is the city’s third cooperation project with e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, after its partnership with leading sales portal Taobao and delivery service provider AliExpress. Taobao, AliExpress and 1688.com are all part of the Alibaba Group.

The new project is expected to promote regulation and internationalization of the local home textiles industry and thus spur the sustainable growth of the sector, industrial insiders said.

Leveraging well-established industrial infrastructure in the city and Alibaba’s online sales expertise, Haimen aims to become a global e-commerce center, local officials said.

In close proximity to Shanghai and bordering Yangtze River and the Yellow Sea, Haimen, a coastal city on the Yangtze River, has distinct advantages in geological location, said its Party chief Jiang Long at the opening ceremony of the economic event.

The city’s GDP reached 91.5 billion yuan in 2015, contributing to its No 22 ranking among the top 100 county-level economies in China.

As the country advances the Belt and Road Initiative and accelerates the development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt and the Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone, Haimen is embracing more opportunities for further growth, Jiang said.