Fortune Global Forum chooses Chengdu thanks to western China market

Ge Honglin, mayor of Chengdu, Sichuan province, shakes hands with Andy Serwer, editor-in-chief of the leading business magazine Fortune, while meeting the press on Monday.

Chengdu's rapid economic expansion in recent years has benefited from the central government's "Go West" strategy, said Ge Honglin, mayor of Chengdu, Sichuan province.

Ge made the remarks yesterday when he and Andy Serwer, editor-in-chief of the leading business magazine Fortune, met the press in Chengdu one day after the magazine announced the city of Chengdu would host the Fortune Global Forum next June.

Asked how Chengdu achieved leapfrog economic development when the goal economy had a slowdown, Ge said that his city, together with other western peers, had witnessed unprecedented development thanks to the western development policies.

"Chengdu has stressed balanced urban and rural development to narrow the gap between the city and the countryside. It has stressed development of high-end industries, changed the mode of economic development and sped up the adjustment of the industrial structure," he said.

In Chengdu, people can find many high-tech firms in fields such as IT, new materials, new energy, automobile, aerospace and aviation. "The firms have enjoyed sound development in Chengdu as a result of the city's right development concept," he said.

While improving the infrastructural facilities, Chengdu has devoted major efforts to offering better service to woo outside investment.

"Chengdu has hosted the Foreign Investment Forum since 2000. The forum is held every quarter and ensures every complaint foregin businessmen file is handled properly and every problem can be solved," Ge said.

Four years ago, some Sino-foreign joint ventures in Sichuan complained about intellectural property rights breaching.

Seven days after Wang Xiaodong, chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in Southwest China, talked about this issue with Ge, the mayor gave him a written document listing Chengdu's policies pertaining to intellectual property rights protection and the government's role in solving problems in this regard.

At the outset, the mayor only listened to the complaint of foreign businessmen and helped them solve problems in the forum.

"Gradually, we sought their advice on Chengdu's development, which helped them integrate with the city. Much improvement in the government work has been achieved because the city has followed the advice of foreign investors, " Ge said.

He thought that one reason why Chengdu had been chosen as the host city of the 2013 Fortune Global Forum was that it had been held in the advanced eastern part of the country.

The hosting of the forum in Chengdu will enable participants to see the great achievements of the Chinese Government's western development strategy, the great achievements of the local Chinese government in disaster relief and reconstruction, balanced urban and rural development to narrow the gap between the urban and rural areas in the Chinese city, and the remarkable results of the inland Chinese city in coping with the global financial crisis and changing the mode of economic growth, he said.

To the mayor, Chengdu has been chosen as the host city of next year's Fortune Global Forum because investors want to know if China's development is more and more balanced, and if the development of its western part is scientific and sustainable.

"Of course, the huge market in western China is another major reason attracting them. Sichuan alone has around 90 million people, which has a huge market potential. It is more precise to say the Fortune Global Forum has chosen western China than to say it has chosen Chengdu, Ge said.

The mayor thinks the greatest opportunity brought about by the hosting of the Fortune Global Forum will be to make Chengdu known to the world and make the city integrate with the world.

"Chengdu's gross domestic product was 680 billion yuan (US$108 billion) last year. Even if it is combined with the GDP of Chongqing and Xi'an, the figure lags far behind that of the Yangtze Rive Delta or Pearl River Delta," Ge said.

He hoped that more Fortune 500 firms would better communicate with local firms in the Fortune Global Forum.

"While multinationals tap the market in western China, I hope more firms from Chengdu will tap the international market and integrate themselves into the world economy," he said.

Li Yu contributed to the story