Northeast China's Liaoning Province is to strengthen coastline and port construction to boost the economy, a senior official at the ongoing 10th Provincial People's Congress has revealed.

Li Keqiang, secretary of Liaoning Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China, said Liaoning was to implement an ocean-orientated opening-up project named "five spots and one line."

The ports at the five cities of Huludao, Dalian, Panjin, Dandong, and Jinzhou, all located along the coastline of Bohai Bay, are to be expanded.

"We should grasp the chance and make full use of the unique advantages as a coastal province to speed up development and revitalize the industrial base, " said Li.

The local authority also plans to build an expressway along the bay to connect all coastal cities, so as to push forward transportation and goods distribution.

"The essence of the policy is to form an all-round, multi-layered and wide-ranging scheme. The coastal region will become our window and bridge to the outside world, " said Liu Wen, vice-director of the Department of Foreign Trade and Economic Co-operation of Liaoning Province.

Introducing international investors to reactivate the rigid State-owned enterprise dominated economy has become a major goal for the Chinese Government.

Last June, the State Council's office published a special policy of further opening up northeast China to help revitalize the traditionally industrial base.

It includes many preferential policies, including financial, land and taxation, to encourage foreign companies to invest in the three provinces of Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang.

"With the unique advantage of coastline resources, Liaoning Province can enjoy these policies greatly," said Zhang Zuoku, senior official from Liaoning provincial government.

Liaoning has 2,421 kilometres of coastline and nearly one-third of its cities are located on the coast.

In the past several years, local governments have invested heavily in infrastructure construction, such as building bigger ports, expressways and railways.

Statistics from Jinzhou municipal government shows local governments have inputted more than 500 million yuan (US$62 million) in port construction in the past five years.

And it plans to invest 5 billion yuan (US$ 617 million) itself in the next five years.

(China Daily January 26, 2006)