Innovation was one of the words Li Hongzhong, the newly elected governor of Hubei Province, used most frequently in a meeting with the media on Saturday in this capital city.

Li, former Party secretary and mayor of Shenzhen, a booming coastal city at the forefront of China's reform and opening-up, said innovation should be the "main driving force" for all of his government's work over the next five years, to position Hubei as a vanguard in the rise of the country's central region.

"As long as we make great strides in the innovation of our mechanisms and systems, Hubei will embrace speedy development," he told reporters.

The governor, who was born in 1956 in Shandong Province, is seen to be betting on his knowledge of Shenzhen to boost Hubei's development.

Hubei, as well as other central provinces, lags far behind the coastal region. Its per capita GDP stood at 15,000 yuan (US$2,088) last year, only half of that of Guangdong Province where Shenzhen is located.

The central government in December approved Wuhan and eight other smaller cities in the province - Qianjiang, Tianmen, Xiantao, Xiaogan, Huanggang, Ezhou, Huangshi and Xianning - as an experimental zone for resource-saving and environmentally friendly programs, Li said.

He said his government will work out a plan as soon as possible for the nine cities, which account for 60 percent of Hubei's GDP now and forms a third of its territory.

"We should not expect to have a perfect plan at the very start," he added.

"We need innovation in our management. We should experiment audaciously as the central government gives us sufficient room to experiment without detailed stipulations."

He said he is confident that Hubei will achieve success as an international city and with many industries in China's coastal region shifting to the hinterland.

According to Li's work report last month, multinational companies are welcomed as strategic investors in modern manufacturing and services, as well as hi-tech and agricultural product processing in the province over the next five years. Foreign direct investment in Hubei is expected to more than double to US$6 billion.

Hubei aims to grow its per capita GDP to 27,000 yuan by 2012, officials said.

(China Daily February 5, 2008)