The municipal government is exerting to turn the city, known for its beautiful scenery and time-honored silk products, into a center of designing, manufacturing and marketing fashionable dresses.

By doing so, the local government also aims to create more job opportunities to reduce the unemployment rate.

The total output value of the city's women's fashion industry is expected to reach 12 billion yuan (1.44 billion US dollars) annually within a five-year period, with exports hitting 1 billionUS dollars on a yearly basis.

The city also plans to develop five enterprises with a yearly sales volume of 1 billion yuan (120 million US dollars) each and agroup of name brand garments for ladies.

Hangzhou, a popular tourist destination and one of China's mosteconomically-developed cities, boasts a host of advantages and conditions for developing the fashion industry, said Du Yuzhou, chairman of the China Textile Industry Association.

Dubbed as the cradle for cultivating China's garment designers,the beautiful city boasts the China Academy of Fine Arts, the Zhejiang Engineering College and the Zhejiang Science and Technology College, which all have set up garment designing specialties. Many graduates of these colleges work in Hangzhou city. At present, Hangzhou has over 2,400 firms tailoring dresses forfemales, reporting an annual output value of more than 4 billion yuan (480 million US dollars). These enterprises employ some 100,000 workers and many of them have opened franchise stores nationwide.

Moreover, as part of the local government's efforts to boost the women's fashion industry, the Hangzhou municipal government invested more than 10 million yuan (1.2 million US dollars) to rebuild Wulin Road in the downtown area. The road, formerly home to personal tailors, has now become the center for displaying brand-name women's fashions.

Meanwhile, the city government plans to set aside a three-sq-kmarea for building an international women's suit center in the Economic and Technological Development Zone in Xiaoshan District.

The local government has worked out special policies in supportof the development of the industry, with plans to each year earmark 3 million yuan in special funds for name brand firms and to assist women's fashion enterprises in terms of loans, customs duties and employment of laid-off workers.

Hangzhou's burgeoning fashion industry has also caught the attention of international garment giants. Since early last year, the city has hosted two international fashion shows which drew such high-class names as Maxstudio and Prada of Italy and J.D.R ofthe United States.

To provide access to the latest trends about new women's fashions of Hangzhou city, a website www.suit-dress.com has been launched on the Internet.

(Xinhua News Agency October 25, 2002)