General Introduction 

Situated in the southwest of Guangdong Province, and adjacent to South China Sea, the administrative area of Maoming stretches to 11,459 square kilometers. It is a petrochemical industrial city newly emerging in the late 1950s and began to govern its neighboring counties in 1983. And under the administration of Maoming Municipality are Maonan District, Maogang District and Dianbai County, as well as 3 county-level cities of Gaozhou, Xinyi and Huazhou. By the end of 2003, the population of the entire municipal area totaled 6,681,300 and the municipal government headquarters in Maonan District.

Since the reform and opening policy was put forward, all aspects of both social and economic development in Maoming have witnessed a rapid and healthy momentum and comprehensive stren gths are increasing continuously. The municipality has been built into the biggest fruit production base, a base of vegetables shipped from the south to the north, one of the largest crude oil processing bases in China, and a pivotal energy, raw material and heavy petrochemical industrial base in Guangdong Province. In 1994, Maoming entered into the national top 55 list of cities in terms of its GDP. In 2003, Maoming achieved a GDP value of RMB 65.699 billion yuan (at current price), representing an increase of 11.3% over that of the year 2002. Overall social consumer product retail sales amounted to 24.126 billion yuan, representing an increase of 12.01%. The budgetary revenue of the whole city registered 1.425 billion yuan, up by 18.5%. Per capita net income of farmers reached 4,165 yuan, up by 4%..

Enjoying reputation throughout the country, the "high-yield, high-quality and high-efficiency" agriculture has developed from traditional to commercial, and gradually proceeded in the direction of regionalization, sizeableness and industrialization.Maoming municipality has found out its own route of agricultural development in building up some production bases for farm produce as grain, edible oil, vegetable, fruit, aquatic product, poultry, livestock and southern herbs. Lychee, longan and banana, which are grown in the south of the Five Ridges, enjoy fame both home and abroad. The "sugar poppy" red lychee from Jianjiang, the longan from Chuliang, and the "torpedo" banana have won golden and silver prizes at agricultural exhibitions in the past years. "Three Yellow Chicken", tilapia and etc. are well known widely. In 2003, the gross output of fruit reached 1,834,500 tons, resulting in increase of farmers' income. Output of meats and aquatic products increa sed by 5.9% and 8.0% respectively. Added value completed by the primary industry came to 17.068 billion yuan, registering an increase of 5.7%. The municipality has been ranked the first agriculturally throughout the province, as evidenced by taking the lead for many years in total output value of agriculture, and gross output of grain and fruit.

Industries have taken an advantageous shape, showing increasing potential for further development. Well endowed by its unique conditions, Maoming is a suitable place to develop industry. Maoming Petrochemical Co. Ltd. boasts a production and management system, which annually processes 13.5 million tons of crude oil, produces 380 thousand tons of ethylene, and provides other enterprises with large quantities of downstream products. The municipality is rich in mineral resources. Nearly 100 types of mineral resources have been found, and their potential value is estimated to reach more than 400 billion yuan. Reserve of oil shale amounts to 5.1 billion tons. Kaolin earth takes the lead nationwide in terms of its amount of reserve, quality and production scale. Tin, titanium and rare earth have the largest reserve and the best quality throughout the province. A relatively complete industrial structure is formulated with post-processing of petrochemistry and ethylene, intensive processing of farm produce and deep processing of mineral resources constituting the three pillar industries, and mechanical electronics, construction materials, light industry, textile, food processing and plastics growing accordingly. 349 out of 674 state-owned or collective enterprises have undergone ownership transformation, including 139 shareholding enterprises. Maoming Petrochemical Shihua Co. Ltd. and Maoming Yongye (Group) Co. Ltd. are newly listed in the stock market. Private enterprises witnessed rapid growth. Enterprises with foreign capital and limited liability companies became the bellwether. The year of 2003 saw completion of total above-scale industrial output value worth of 52.274 billion yuan (current price), an increase of 12.36% including local industrial output value of 17.664 billion yuan, an increase of 22.14%, and private sectors up by 29.24%. The comprehensive index of industrial economic profit rose by 4.96 percentage points, representing a tax revenue increased of 5.52%. The added value completed by the secondary industry amounted to 25.246 billion yuan, up by 13.2%.

Tertiary industry gained massive growth. 23.385 billion yuan of added value has been fulfilled, representing an increase of 13.6%. The total volume of export reached US$ 1.26 billion, up by 43.6%. Actually utilized foreign investment reached US$ 101 million, up by 14%. Such industries as tourism, real estate, information technology, education and community service became new stimulative to economic growth.

Infrastructure construction witnessed continuous improvement and created a favorable investment environment. A communication network took shape in Maoming Municipality with centering railway, highway and waterway as its main parts. Sanshui - Maoming Railway conjoins Beijing - Kowloon Railway, and Hechun - Maoming Railway connects Liuzhou - Zhanjiang Railway. National highways No.207 and 325 cross the municipality where the city proper links the county (county-level city) seats via first-class highways and townships are accessible to county seats via second - class highways. The density of highway in the whole municipality reached 69.2 kilometers per hundred square meters and mileage totaled 7,034, including 290.8 kilometers of first-class highways and 1280.4 kilometers of second-class highways. Maoming - Zhanjiang section of Guangzhou - Zhanjiang expressway has been open to traffic and Yangjiang - Maoming section is well under construction. The section connecting Maoming city proper and Zhanjiang Airport stretches as long as 90 kilometers. Maoming Port, a first-class entry and exit point in the country, is equipped with many 10,000-ton berths for transporting ready oil, groceries and containers, and a 250,000-ton-berth system for loading and unloading crude oil, the largest of this kind nationwide. The annual capacity reached 17.59 million tons, ranking the 17th in the country. The total capacity of switchboard reached 850,000 lines and fixed phone over 600,000 lines, all of which was program-controlled. Mobile phones and wireless calls are in common sight everywhere in either urban or suburban areas. Installed capacity of power generation reached 710,000 kilowatts. The development of power grid proceeded appropriately ahead of schedule. The constructed area in the city proper covered 31.8 square kilometers. Greenery coverage reached 37.7%. In 2001, the municipality won the title of "National Landscaping City".
 
The Major Preferential Policies for Supporting the Non-State-owned Economy 

1. Industrial Park Development Corporation will provide land for business purposes in the parks, which is equipped with power and telecom and water supply and leveled ground ready for construction. For land leasing between 3 and 50 years of terms, the rent charged is 2 yuan per square meter per month and the rate will be reassessed or readjusted every 3 years in accordance with the fluctuation of GPI figures. A 20% discount will be granted on the market price from the current similar land deal for business that wish to purchase the land instead of leasing.

2. Within 3 calendar years from the commencing date of the newly started business operating in the industry park, there will be no administrative charges by the municipal government and utility service overhead will be paid at 30% of the total amount payable. Starting from the fourth year, business is only required to pay the minimum charge except the social security payments.
 
The Major Preferential Policies for Supporting the Non-State-owned Economy 

1. Taxation
Taxes payable by both domestic and international investors in Maoming will be subject to the relevant tax regulations stipulated by the Central and Guangdong Provincial governments.

2. Land incentives
I. Those private and foreign-invested enterprises which have developed nationally designated innovative products as certified by government science and technology departments at national and provincial and municipal levels will be totally or partially exempted from charge for the use of industrial land in the light of the size of investment in fixed assets as well as the technology mix in the project invested and in line with relevant regulations by the central government. The same incentives shall also be granted to those patent holders, which turn out for the first time their products either in Maoming or Guangdong Province.

II. When the private enterprises in manufacturing sector and foreign-invested enterprises use land for industrial purpose, the mature or developed land will be 75 yuan per square meter and the raw or developing land will be 45 yuan per square meter as a favorable standard price controlled by the government. But for land whose original cost is over 75 yuan per square meter or 45 yuan per meter, discount incentive shall be given, calculating in line with the land requisition cost regulations.

III. For 5 years commencing from 2003, special funds of RMB 15 millions out of the municipal treasury will be appropriated to support the development of small-and-medium-size enterprises (SMEs) in the establishment of credit assurance systems and building service systems of SMEs and technological innovation by privately-run enterprises. On the priority support of government will be four types of privately-run enterprises as follows: available resources processing businesses, science and technology oriented businesses, foreign-export-oriented businesses, labor intensive businesses and those employing the laid off.
 
Key Projects in Maoming Available for Investment 

1. Production Project of 3 million Meridian-type Tires for Motor Vehicles/year

2. Project of annual production of 50,000 tons ABS resin

3. Project of annual production of 20,000 tons of soft quality carbon black with new technology

4. Annual production of 10,000 tons of polyethylene pipes and fittings

5. Annual production of 10,000 tons of propylene oxide and non-fluorine polyether

6. Downstream processing of kaolin

7. Annual production of 10,000 tons of PVC and PE pipes and fittings

8. Annual production of 10, 000 tons of polypropylene short fiber

9. Dry method production of 240,000-360,000 tons/year of ultra fine calcium carbonate

10. Tangerine trees planting and fruit processing

11. "High-quality and high-yield and high-return" fishery

12. A pig farm of 500,000 heads with the feedstuff factory having annual production capacity for 100 thousand tons of feeds

13. Comprehensive processing technology of yellow olive

14. Project of 600-acre production base for round-seasoned and chemical-free vegetables 

 
Editor: Catherine