Today (August 26), the consulate officials visit the second stop of their four-day East Pearl River Delta tour, Dongguan, where the economy was growing by 20 percent every year in the past 30 years. Mr. Liu Zhigeng, Party Secretary of Dongguan, met with the guests, and expressed, on behalf of Dongguan city, the appreciation to foreign investors for their contribution to the city's development.

Mr. Liu said Dongguan booked a GDP growth of 18 percent last year, and 16 percent in the first six month this year. The city's development is mainly based on the foreign-oriented economy expansion in the thirty years, during the period, over 11,000 foreign companies invested in the city and the FDI added up to over 40 billion USD so far. Beside economy, the city had input much effort in overall development and won national and international titles for its tourism, environment and overall competitiveness. Dongguan boasted to be the most active cities in environmental protection, with an input of 2 billion RMB each year. So far the city has closed down 43 cement plants, 208 brick plants and over 500 farms, which causes severe pollution. According to the overall plan, the city will input 25 billion RMB to build 36 sewage treatment plants and 4 dispose treatment centers.

However, the city now is facing challenges in its development, for example, for a city with a population of 12 million, the social administration work could be huge. More important, how to transform the industrial structure and upgrade the existing industries is the biggest challenge for Dongguan, which won its 30-year economy progress by developing labor intensive industries and processing industries. Liu described the current situation both a challenge and a chance for the city.

To help the enterprises to adapt to the new development mode, the city is now making effort to reduce local enterprises' burden and improve the efficiency of the government services. And now the large size enterprises in the city are having stable growth. In the first six months this year, the Dongguan enterprises had an export and import growth of 19.8 percent, while the export alone up 20.3 percent. The international trade is expected to face mounting challenges in the second half of this year, and the city government will further reduce their burden, give more financing support to the enterprises and also the government is going to encourage some of the foreign funded companies to explore domestic markets, instead of focusing only on exportation. Liu pointed out that the city hope to attract foreign investments in the tertiary industry, especially in finance, service sector and logistics.

Editor: Yan