Mou Xiaoyu, vice secretary general of Nanjing Municipal Government and director of Nanjing Municipal Bureau of Foreign Trade & Economic Cooperation

2007, to which we just bade farewell, was a year of tightening macro-control by the central government. In the meantime, it was also a year that witnessed active response to new landscapes and new situations, as well as accelerated transformation of development mode in Nanjing ’s foreign economy and trade community. Adhering to the guidance of the scientific development view, Nanjing Municipal Government adopted a strategy of increasing the international influence of the city, and identified the core task of improving quality and performance. In the year, we insisted on the combination of selective introduction of investments and know-how from foreign companies. While accelerating the transformation of the growth mode in the foreign trade community, we highlighted the service outsourcing sector and propelled transnational investment and business operation. As a result, the open economy sector maintained a momentum of stable development.  

As of the end of 2007, Nanjing has secured USD 33.8 billion in FDI commitment, including USD 17.7 billion in foreign investment actually made. It is home to 141 investment projects by 81 of the Global 500. Total import and export value of the year amounted to USD 36.19 billion, up 14.8% from that of the previous year. Total revenue from engineering and labor contracting services increased by 22.7% to USD 744 million. The engineering contracting sector topped Jiangsu Province in terms single project size. With the jump start of the service outsourcing sector, a dozen leading players including Accenture, Ascendas and Satyam extended their presence into Nanjing . Total offshore outsourcing service of the year exceeded USD 100 million. Along with continued expansion in terms of quantity and size, the open economy sector achieved significant improvement in terms of quality, structure and performance, and became one of the brightest aspects in the fast, sound development of the city’s social economy.  

Having ended a fruitful year, we are now embarking on a new journey with full confidence. Currently, the economic development and opening-up of the nation have entered a new stage. The adjustment of the central government to its foreign trade and foreign capital utilization policies has triggered substantial changes in the policies and the business environment in the open economy sector. Specifically in Nanjing , the open economy sector faces new challenges, as well as new development opportunities. In the next round of development, we will follow the guidelines of the 17^th National Congress of CPC, and persist on the strategy of Nanjing Municipal Government for the transformation from prioritized development to optimized development. We will continue to insist on the combination of quantitative expansion and qualitative improvement, stressing “5 innovations and 5 enhance”: innovation in development ideas to enhance a firm and self-conscious stance for scientific development; innovation in development momentum to enhance our core competence; innovation in development mode to enhance the development scale and level of the modern industrial system; innovation in opening-up measures to enhance the level of opening-up; and innovation in the functions of the development zones to enhance their overall business environment. We will take a path of “opening up at higher level, in broader scope and farther depth” to make additional contribution to the comprehensive, coordinated and sustainable development of Nanjing ’s social economy.  

I. We will continue to drive the selective introduction of foreign investment projects and the optimization and upgrade of the industries with “two wheels”, i.e., the advanced manufacturing sector and the modern service sector. In line with the requirements for the development of the “10 Major Industrial Chains” and “8 Emerging Industries” of the city, we will highlight the FPD, chemical, automotive and IT industries. We will continue to focus our efforts on the introduction of industrial leaders and competitive companies, drive the intensive development of the foreign invested businesses, and accelerate the formation of a high-end modern manufacturing system. In the meantime, we will enhance the introduction of foreign investment projects into the manufacturer service sector, and guide foreign investments into the high value-added links along the industrial chains in an effort to achieve new breakthroughs in 2 major fields: software R&D and modern logistics. We will highlight the service outsourcing sector through the introduction of service outsourcing projects of regional head offices, R&D centers, distribution centers, finance centers and regional training centers of transnational companies. We will accelerate the development of the service outsourcing sector and escalate the comprehensive development level of the entire service industry to consolidate our leadership as the “modern service center in the province”. More than ever before, we will emphasize the combination of foreign investment introduction with proprietary innovation to enhance the introduction, absorption, and re-innovation links. We will guide local enterprises into fast-track convergence with the global manufacturing system to continuously enhance our proprietary innovation ability and our competitiveness in the international market.   

II. We will continue to build export brands, which we hold as one of our most important tasks, and accelerate the transformation of the growth mode of our foreign trade sector. Through our export competiveness enhancement strategy, proper planning and guiding, sound policies and greater support, we will continuously enhance the competitiveness of our export brands in the international market. We will support leading brands to explore the international market and accelerate the buildup of their own international marketing networks and after-sale service systems. We will continue to drive the strategy of developing foreign trade with science and technology, and try to increase the weights of proprietary hi-tech products and electromechanical products in the gross export value. With stronger support to major software companies, we will continuously increase the export of proprietary software products. We will enhance information service, ensure unhampered import channels, take more effective actions for the import of advanced and applicable key technologies and equipment, and reform and upgrade the traditional industries. We will support the private sector and encourage foreign-invested companies to develop general trade. By creating conditions necessary, we will support leading textile and electromechanical companies to explore the emerging markets in a broader scope and to increase the export of products, for which they hold competitive edges. We will stress the export of local feature agricultural products, which, we expect, would play a more active role in optimizing the structure of agriculture and increasing the income of the farmers. While trying to drive the transformation of the processing and trade sectors, we will guide processing and trade enterprises to further increase the proportion of raw materials sourced from local market and to improve their values added.      

III. We will leverage the roles of leading enterprises to further enhance our competitiveness in international economic and technological cooperation. We will continue to provide large, strong, competitive industrial leaders with support in the general contracting of international engineering projects, upon which basis, we will drive large-scale cooperation through major projects, and facilitate the interaction of Nanjing’s engineering contracting sector. Particularly, we will support technology-intensive enterprises with better proprietary innovation ability and core proprietary intellectual properties to engage in international competition, and cultivate the design and consultation sector into one of the new powerhouses or momentums of foreign engineering contracting. We will encourage innovative business models, and support enterprises to contract engineering projects through the means of management contracting. We will facilitate the integration of foreign engineering contracting with investment, resource exploitation and other cooperation means in foreign countries/regions to further improve the level of foreign engineering contracting. We will accelerate the development of direct investment in foreign countries/regions, and encourage enterprises to transfer mature manufacturing capacities into other developed countries. In the meantime, we will encourage M&A of established foreign brands and distribution/service networks, and support enterprises with the resources and power necessary to open R&D centers and design centers in overseas markets. We will expedite the development of Lekki Free Trade Zone in Nigeria and build it into a base for Nanjing-based companies to make investments in Africa as soon as possible.  

IV. We will continue to promote the upgrade of the development zones, which we hold as one of our high priorities, and facilitate inter-regional cooperation, opening up and mutual development. Insisting on the “4 innovations”, i.e., innovation in development modes, innovation in technologies, innovation in functions and innovation in management, we will strive toward the goal of fast and sound development of the development zones to enhance their roles as paradigms. We will continue to improve and build up the roles of the functional platforms. While leveraging existing special functional zones, we will take effective actions to apply for additional bonded logistics functions for the export processing zones. We will accelerate the application processes for Longtan Bonded Port Zone and Lukou Airport Bonded Logistics Park . We will Leverage the brand images of the existing national FPD, bio-pharmaceutical and hi-tech product bases to attract sectors in the upper and down streams of the industrial chains to build more powerful industrial clusters. We will accelerate the development of the national model service outsourcing park, attract leading outsourcing service providers to create a paradigm of driving effect. We will expedite the development of the national service outsourcing training center in an effort to build Nanjing into one of the best service outsourcing bases in China . We will continue to leverage major industrial clusters to accelerate the integration of national and provincial development zones, major industrial parks, export processing zones, bonded logistics centers and other platforms to enable resource sharing, consolidate the competitive edge of our system, and facilitate the formation of a sound picture of mutual supplementation and interaction.