The achievements release conference

Guangdong delegation has signed 115.783 billion yuan worth of cooperation projects, accounting 26.58% of the total value of projects signed in the Second Pan-Pearl River Delta Regional Cooperation and Development Forum, which is closed on July 28, Chengdu, Sichuan province.

Some 67.2% of the projects are pooled in industrial manufacturing and service section, while the property investment projects has increase 11.6% than the first forum. And the business purchase and sale projects accounts 21% of the total.

Amoung Guangdong delegation, cities in Pearl River Delta signs most of the cooperate projects. Guangzhou lists the top with 14.9bn yuan, and than followed Shenzhen. And most large amount of projects are signed with Hong Kong SAR and Sichuan Province. 
 

Yang Zhiwen, Vice Governor of Sichuan province

The second Pan-Pearl River Delta (PPRD) Regional Co-operation and Development Forum and the second PPRD Economic and Trade Cooperation Fair were held in Chengdu, capital city of Si-chuan in July fostering closer coop-eration in the Pan Pearl River area.

NEW COOPERATION IS FOSTERED

During the PPRD forum, officials from several state ministries suggested speed-ing up the PPRD region's planning and development. Their suggestions incl-uded incorporating the PPRD regional development into the state's "eleventh five-year (2006-2010) plan", accelerating the construction of large cross-border infrastructure projects, promoting a PPRD barrier-free travel zone and est-ablishing an open and effective market system.

Huang Huahua, Governor of Guang-dong Province, said that Guangdong w-ould continue to play an active role in fostering the regional cooperation and will support the cooperation projects and implement the cooperation mea-sures.

The PPRD Regional Cooperation and Development Program (2006-2020), which identifies plans and work priorities regarding PPRD regional cooperation in the near future, was launched during the forum. The program includes stepping up infrastructure development, promoting an open market, advancing the implementation of the Mainland-Hong Kong and Mainland-Macao Closer Economic Partnership Arrangements (CEPA) and increasing direct flights within the PPRD region.

According to the forum, the PPRD regional cooperation will organize a se-cretariat for the PPRD Administrative Principal Joint Conference, and the of-fice will be located in Guangdong. The secretariat will facilitate communication between the eleven PPRD  members, as well as standardize the regional cooperation.

The forum also included three sub-forums on intellectual property pro-tection, capital market and logistics development.

During the Economic and Trade Co-operation Fair, a purchasing conference for enterprises was held and yielded contracts worth over 800 million RMB. Six conferences were arranged to pro-mote PPRD members¡¯ cooperation in infrastructure construction, manufacturing, agriculture, the service industry, technology innovation and tourism. More than 4,000 project contracts in total were signed, worth 453.5 billion RMB (54.8 billion USD). The projects mainly focus on manufacture, trade and tour-ism, and manufacturing occupies 33.75 percent of the total investment.

The forum also revealed that the third PPRD Regional Cooperation and Development Forum and the third PPRD Economic and Trade Cooperation Fair will be held in Kunming, capital city of Yunnan Province next year.

COOPERATION IS VITAL TO GROWTH

Closer economic cooperation within the PPRD has helped the region's inland provinces/autonomous regions boost their foreign trade. The region reached a total foreign trade volume of US$227.19 billion between January and June this year.

In 2004, the PPRD had a population of 460 million people, making up of about one-third of the national population. The GDP of the PPRD Region totaled 730 billion USD, surpassing countries such as Mexico, South Korea, India, and Holland and its total trade volume reached 970 billion USD, higher than the corresponding figures of France or the United Kingdom.

In the first half of this year, the region sold 126.76 billion USD worth of products abroad, while overseas purchases came to 100.43 billion USD, up year-on-year 23 percent and 9.4 percent respectively. It had a foreign trade surplus of 26.33 billion USD, representing 66.5 percent of China's total trade surplus in the first half of the year. The import and export volume from the region's processing industry amounted to 138.77 billion USD, a year-on-year increase of 15.9 percent.

The PPRD's foreign trade volume with its two major trading partners, the United States and the EU, reached 35.61 and 28.29 billion USD, up by 20.5 per-cent and 20.9 percent respectively from last year.

Economic ties between the PPRD region and ASEAN witnessed sustain-able growth. The PPRD purchased 13.46 billion USD worth of products from ASEAN countries while its export to those countries was 7.75 billion USD, up 8.4 percent and 27.5 percent respectively.

Exports to India enjoyed a huge year-on-year increase of 96.5 percent to reach 1.04 billion USD. India has become the 10th largest trade partner of the PPRD region.  

Editor: Yan