Posted 2017/7/27
Liaocheng City, situated at the juncture of Hebei, Shandong and Henan Provinces, currently comprise eight counties (urban area) and one economic development zone, with a total area of 8,715 square kilometers and a population of 5,807,000.
It is named by the State as a famous city with profound history and splendid culture. The Yellow River, mother of the Chinese nation, and the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal wind through this city and connect each other to nurture this age-old but modern city. It presently boasts over 400 pieces of cultural relics, including 9 key heritage sites under state protection, and 14 provincial-level units of cultural relics’ protection. Many stories described in the famous Chinese Classical Novels, Water Margin and Jin Ping Mei, has its setting in Liaocheng City.
As an outstanding tourist city, Liaocheng is noted as “the Water City North of the Yangtze River”. The Grand Canal, Tuhai River, and many other rivers wind through the city. Dongchang Lake, the largest urban lake in northern China, embraces this historic city, covering an area of 6.3 square kilometers, and urban lakes as well as rivers occupies nearly 1/3 of the current urban area, thus form the unique view of “City, Lake and River as an perfectly arranged whole”.
Liaochen has a distinctive geographic advantage. Linking booming coastal areas and the resource-rich inland areas, it becomes the important commercial and logistic distribution centers in northern China. With a large population of 200 million in a radius of 300 km, it has vast development hinterland and noted as an ideal place for expanding northern markets. It also has convenient transportation, with the Beijing-Kowloon Railway and Jinan-Handan Railway meeting here and only one hour drive to Jinan international airport.
It is home to abundant resources. Adjacent to China’s largest coal base in Shanxi, it has an ample supply of energy, existing power generation capacity of more than 5 million kilowatts and a clear advantage in electricity price. It also has 2.6 million available labor force of high quality. Liaocheng University, Liaocheng Vocational and Technical College, Liaocheng Clothing College, as well as various secondary vocational schools altogether have an enrollment of over 100,000 and cultivate a variety of technical personnel and the general mechanics. The combined business costs are about 40% lower than that of southern China and about 30% than that of the east of Shandong province
It also boasts a solid industrial background. It is a developing base of modern agriculture, advanced manufacturing, modern tourism as well as service trade. The extensive plains, together with rich water resource and high technology have accelerated the development of its modern agriculture. There are 4.5 million mu of high-quality wheat, 1.5 million mu of pollution free vegetables with 98 brands and 1 million mu of orchards, like pear plantation, etc. The cultivation area of edible mushroom ranks first in China and animal husbandry, processing trade as well as exporting all lead China in their fields.
Besides, Liaocheng is an emerging Industrial city. As China’s largest producer of aluminum, Shandong Xinfa Aluminum and Electricity Group has the existing annual production capacity of three million tons of alumina powder, 560,000 tons of electrolytic aluminum and 300,000 tons of aluminum deep-processing; as the largest production base of transport machinery, the Shandong Shifeng Group has an annual output of 1 million light trucks, 1 million units of the engines and six million sets of tires; as the largest, best-quality and the most advanced production base of cathode copper, the Shandong Xiangguang Group, with all the projects put into production, will have an annual production capacity of 400,000 tons of copper, 20 tons of gold, 600 tons of silver and other related products; Shangdong Dong-e E-jiao Group is China’s largest productor of E-Jiao (donkey-hide gelatin). The E-gelatin annual output is 1,500 tons that accounts for 70% of the total output of China and the export takes up over 90% of the total amount of China; Luxi Chemical Group is the largest fertilizer production enterprises, with an annual production capacity of 2,000,000 tons of various fertilizers.
It is also an emerging tourist and commercial city. As a water city in north of Yangtze River with profound historical and cultural resources, it is becoming a tourist attraction and leisure resorts among people at home and abroad. Tianmu & Water City Holiday College is the first five-star spa resort. As a regional commercial and logistic center, it currently has over 40 various types of wholesale produce markets, including the Xiangjiang market which is one of the top five modern wholesale markets in Shandong Province.
It boasts excellent living and business environment. It features pleasant climate and beautiful living surrounding. A variety of living facilities are well equipped, such as facilities of education, health care, sports, community service, etc. It is committed to building an innovation-oriented city and currently has 15 above provincial-level technology centers, including two state-level centers, as well as 5 post-doctoral scientific research station.
It has set up a high-tech industrial parks and innovation service center (incubator). There are 10 provincial-level economic development zones and industrial parks which vigorously develop export-oriented economy and enjoy the national preferential policies. Liaocheng spares no effort to provide the most preferential policies for foreign investors. The municipal government has founded administrative services halls to provide investors with focused, limited examination and approval service. It owns foreign-related institutions like customs, commodity inspection, bonded warehouses, etc. where import and export goods can be directly declared and inspected.
In 2008, the city had 120 billion yuan of GDP, up by 13% over the previous year; the total financial revenue reached 11.99 billion yuan, up by 19.9%, including the local revenue of 4.89 billion yuan, up by 15.4%; the total investment in fixed assets was 52 billion, increasing by 25.5%; the total retail sales of consumer goods reached 39.3 billion yuan, increasing by 22%; the per-capita disposable income of urban residents totaled 14,385 yuan, rising by 16% and the per-capita net income of rural residents 5041 yuan, up by 12%; the actually utilized foreign capital totaled 120 million dollars, up by 20%; the total value of import and export reached 3 billion dollars, an increase of 74%, among which exports of 1.5 billion dollars, up by 50%. The growth rate of various indicators all led other cities of Shangdong province.
