Last year marked the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the Xiamen Special Economic Zone. China Daily takes a close look at this port city's cruise upstream.

After a quarter century of sustained 18 percent year-on-year economic growth, the gross domestic product (GDP) of Xiamen, in East China's Fujian Province, hit 116 billion yuan last year nearly 16 percent of Fujian Province's overall GDP.

The value of the city's foreign trade hit $33 billion last year, more than 200 times the amount in 1980.

"Foreign investment has provided most of the momentum for the city's economic boom," said Lin Minshu, an economics professor at Xiamen University.

Statistics show that the value of the industrial output by foreign-funded enterprises in Xiamen hit 47 billion yuan ($5.9 billion) in 2005, accounting for 83 percent of the city's overall industrial output, a record high.

And the involvement of funds from overseas does not stop there.

Sun Xiyou, director of the Xiamen Foreign Investment Bureau, said the city had clinched $2 billion worth of contracts with foreign investors last year, up 70 percent from a year earlier.

Of the major foreign firms in Xiamen, more than 80 percent were profitable last year, and 12 overseas enterprises upped their investment in the city by over $10 million each in 2005. Computer giant Dell spent $14.5 million in establishing a major Asian production base.

The city's booming business prospects have not only attracted a mass influx of overseas capital, but also earned Xiamen international fame the World Bank listed it as one of China's top five cities in terms of investment environment last year.

The World Bank focuses on clean and efficient administration when evaluating a city's investment environment, Sun said.

Businesses in Xiamen spend less than 36 days on average registering with the government and less than 5.4 days on customs clearance, according to government statistics.

"Xiamen's progress should put to rest any speculation that the Yuanhua smuggling case nine years ago had cast a shadow over the city's development," Lin said, referring to the massive smuggling scandal that rocked the city.

"The smuggling case did tarnish the city's image, but not for long since local industry and the port business, which are the main driving force behind local economic development, were unaffected by the scandal," Lin said.

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