As the first inland national-level new area in China, Chongqing's Liangjiang New Area doubled its GDP four years after establishment with an increase from 79.8 billion yuan in 2009 to 165 billion yuan in 2013; the total industrial output of large industrial enterprises increased from 121.1 billion yuan to 349.2 billion yuan, showing an average annual growth rate of 30.3 percent; and the total volume of foreign trade increased from 3.37 billion USD to 30.5 billion USD, witnessing an average annual increase of 73.4 percent.
According to Tang Zongwei, executive deputy director of Liangjiang New Area Administrative Committee, the four years' development can be summarized as "lay foundation, establish platform, focus on investment promotion, and create favorable environment" which has laid the foundations for further development.
Liangjiang New Area has brought together upstream and downstream enterprises led by BOE's G8.5 TFT-LCD production line and Laibao's G5 TFT-LCD production line, creating a complete electro-optic display industry chain, totaling hundreds of billions of yuan. BOE's G8.5 Oxide TFT-LCD production line, with an investment of 32.8 billion yuan, has settled down here. Adopting international advanced oxide and touch technology, it will produce 90,000 large LCD panels and 30,000 pieces of tablet touch screens per month after launch, and provide core auxiliary products for intelligent terminals manufactured by multinational giant companies.
In the midst of a big data economic boom, Liangjiang New Area took the initiative to deploy development efforts in this field. It attracted companies including SINGAPORE Pacnet, the largest independent telecom service provider in the Asia-pacific region, to settle down and established an international cloud computing base, integrating offshore and onshore businesses. 800,000 servers have signed A contract with the base. Tang Zongwei said Liangjiang New Area has nurtured a number of world-class industrial clusters centering on electronic information, automobiles, high-end equipment and big data. Driven by emerging industries, the total industrial output of large enterprises increased by nearly 30 percent annually, and achieved 350 billion yuan in 2013, which is equal to the industrial output of Chongqing in 2004 as a whole.
"After its establishment, Liangjiang New Area has maintained frequent trade contacts with Hong Kong in the financial and real estate industries. The area attracted an investment of 2.021 billion USD from Hong Kong in 2012, accounting for 63.6 percent of the total foreign investment in actual use; the figure in 2013 was 1.931 billion USD, accounting for 60.9 percent of the total. The financial sector has become one of the fastest-growing industries in Liangjiang New Area, and cooperation with Hong Kong in this sector highly accords with one another. In 2013, the added value of the financial sector reached 13.202 billion yuan, an increase of 26.8 percent over the previous year, representing a share of 8 percent of GDP. There are 306 major innovative financial organizations in the new area, accounting for about a third of the city's total," he added.
According to the targets of 500 billion, 400 billion and 200 billion in automobile, electronics and high-end equipment respectively, an industrial frame featuring a cluster development led by leading companies has gradually taken shape. The number of world top 500 enterprises settling down has increased from 54 to 127. Over the last four years, Liangjiang New Area has signed nearly 1,400 investment projects, totaling 600 billion yuan or so, boasting an actual investment of 420 billion yuan.
John Edwards, the UK trade commissioner for China, praised Chongqing over its rise as a burgeoning center in intelligent manufacturing.