Region a key part of Sichuan's opening-up

Nanchong in Southwest China has seen fruitful expansion in recent years and aims to become a key city for Sichuan province's opening-up and cooperation, local officials said.

The 2019 Western China Silk Expo, which has drawn attention domestically and from countries such as the United States, France, Italy, Thailand and South Korea, will be held in Nanchong from Sept 17 to 22.

The expo is aiming to foster exhibition brands for laying a solid opening-up foundation for Nanchong.

Other events include a Spring Festival culture expo held in 2018 and 2019 in Langzhong, a county-level city in Nanchong, and the Nanchong International Puppet Art Week.

The city is home to 26 Fortune Global 500 enterprises and 55 of China's top 500 companies.

It actively participated in investment-attracting events, such as the Western China International Fair held in Chengdu, capital city of Sichuan province. Last year, the fair held in September saw Nanchong sign 62 projects with investors and investment totaled more than 83.59 billion yuan.

Beijing-based Macrolink Group signed to invest 10 billion yuan in building an international cultural tourism area in Langzhong.

Other projects involve fields including semiconductor device manufacturing, automobile and auto parts, medicine, modern logistics and modern agriculture.

Attracting foreign capital is a priority for the city to promote opening-up.

It has attracted seven companies, including Singapore-headquartered real estate company Mapletree Investments, to develop in Nanchong since the beginning of last year.

During the first half of 2019, foreign direct investment in Nanchong amounted to 549.7 million yuan, a year-on-year rise of 184.6 percent.

The city has focused more on international communication and exchange. It invited and received more than 30 batches of foreign officials from government agencies, embassies and consulates and also overseas Chinese groups to discuss project cooperation and exchange cultures.

Nanchong plans to have its imports and exports exceed 3.5 billion yuan and the foreign investment in actual use surpass 1 billion yuan by the end of 2023.

It wants trade volume in such fields as tourism, education and finance to significantly increase by that time.

To achieve the goals, the city will actively guide and encourage foreign companies to invest in transportation construction, environmental protection, culture, education and healthcare.

It also plans to attract more than 20 projects invested by noted enterprises annually and promote the development of industrial parks such as the Nanchong Economic Development Zone.

It will continue to boost the exhibition economy and host investment promotion events in Europe, the United States, Japan, South Korea and developed regions in China.

Cooperation with other domestic areas will be strengthened. Nanchong will actively receive industrial transfer from the Yangtze River Delta region, which involves Shanghai and Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces in East China, and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region in North China.

It will further cooperation with the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and the Beibu Gulf economic zone in South China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.

Nanchong will strengthen partnership with Hong Kong and Macao in fields such as modern finance, international trade, tourism and biopharmaceuticals.

It will continue to attract quality projects from Singapore and other countries and regions involved in the Belt and Road Initiative to develop in Nanchong.

It will join in cooperation between China and ASEAN and launch trade and people-to-people exchanges with Southeast and South Asian countries.

It will use its characteristic cultures of silk, Spring Festival, shadow puppets, Sichuan Opera and acrobatics to promote folk art exchange and education cooperation with other countries.