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In the heart of China, small cities see big changes

By Johanna Yueh: 0 Comments Print E-mail China.org.cn, March 14, 2011

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Employees inspect a car at a Chery plant in Wuhu, Anhui Province. Chery is the leading Chinese automaker and based in Wuhu. [Wang Wei/China.org.cn]

Where each city differs from one another is in the type of industries it hopes to attract. Many of these industries have long been pillars of their respective cities' economies. For example, Wuhu, home of leading Chinese automaker Chery, is making the automobile industry one of its top priorities, along with the new material, electronic appliance and modern tertiary industries. Chizhou, where the famous Buddhist mountain Jiuhua is located, will focus on tourism, nonferrous metals, fine chemicals and non-metallic materials industries. Because the cities all lie next to each other (they are referred to as the Wanjiang Urban City Belt), the industries they focus on often overlap. Chaohu also is aiming for tourism businesses, while Xuancheng and Anqing are both building up their auto part industries.

On a cloudy Tuesday afternoon, we pulled into the small driveway of a freshly built factory. The factory was a single medium-sized building, facing a small, lonely mountain, which are common in southern Anhui. On all sides, barren tracts of land contained little else than sparse patches of dry grass or flattened piles of dirt. Inside, the factory was almost just as sparse. On the far left wall were a line of copper rods and still-unsoiled machines that processed the metal into usable wires and coils for kongtiaos, the ubiquitous air conditioner units found in apartments, restaurants and shops all across the country. The rest of the factory space was mostly empty, with a row of machines left untouched on the opposite wall.

This was the newest factory of Hailiang, China's largest copper processing company. Hailiang is also one of China's Top 500 companies and ranks 12th among private businesses. It is based in neighboring Zhejiang Province and has plants in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Vietnam. Anhui's industrial transfer plan had pulled the company to Tongling, a small central city on the southern banks of the Yangtze. Tongling, which is known in China for its copper mines and has more than 70 percent of Anhui's copper reserves, is a befitting location for what will become Hailiang’s second-largest plant.

Copper tubes are processed at a Zhejiang Hailiang Co. Ltd. factory in Tongling, Anhui Province. The company, based in Zhejiang Province, is attempting to explore and expand into the booming market of Anhui. [Wang Wei/China.org.cn]

The Tongling factory is gradually expanding its production capacity and workforce, having completed only the first of four planned phases since it opened last July, said manager Fu Linzhong. Now, it has some 200 employees, half of whom are skilled workers transferred from the company's Zhejiang plant. When the factory reaches full operation, it will have transferred 350 employees from Zhejiang.

Other expanding companies are more local. On a whirlwind tour of companies in neighboring Chizhou, we stopped by the site of a future factory for Tongling Nonferrous Metals, a group based in Tongling. The company is spending 3 billion yuan (US$456 million) to build a 99-acre campus in Chizhou, which will produce copper sheets and wires used to make circuit boards for computers, cell phones and other electronic devices.

When we visited the site, only the shell of one building was up. "We came to Chizhou because there is more space [than in Tongling]," explained a Tongling Nonferrous Metals official. He also said it was cheaper when I pointed out all the space I saw in Tongling. Production is expected to begin in November, with an output of 30,000 tons of copper sheets a year worth 3.2 billion yuan (US$487 million).

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