Hangzhou'S Leisure Environment Helps Attract Foreign Investment

One of the biggest fears of SIEMENS (Hangzhou) high voltage switchgear managing director, LutzKraft, is that the company headquarters has pferred him back to Germany.

He said he would rather quit his job and stay in Hangzhou if he did.

In fact, Kraft has been overseas "extended service" - worked in the joint venture in Hangzhou for 12 years.

According to SIEMENS's regulations, the term of office for overseas managers is usually three years, which can be extended for up to two years at most.

His wife was more determined.

She said Ruz Kraft went back, and she would not go back.

It seems that the couple's iron heart will take root in Hangzhou. They have already bought a house there.

In the eyes of the general public, Hangzhou is a famous leisure tourism city, but in the best business city selection of fortune (Chinese), Hangzhou ranked the top, second only to Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen and Guangzhou. This shows that Hangzhou is not only beautiful scenery, but also the connotation of business people.

Tong Guili, vice mayor of Hangzhou who is responsible for foreign affairs, often meets with business people visiting Hangzhou to ask such questions.

She feels that because of the support of leisure culture industry, Hangzhou is attracting more investment, especially attracting some hi-tech enterprises to settle down here.

From the perspective of urban characteristics, Hangzhou can not be compared with Shanghai, Beijing or traditional Chinese industrial bases such as Changchun and Shenyang.

It has no heavy industry and no industrial city, but it also brings opportunities for relocation.

In recent years, China has begun to pform from traditional manufacturing to advanced manufacturing, and many emerging industries are emerging.

Tong Guili said that China is now in the late stage of the middle stage of industry. Hangzhou's industrial economy can not take the old road of traditional manufacturing, and stress should find a type that matches the characteristics of the city, that is, to develop new and high technology industries.

In Hangzhou, the high-tech industry is mainly divided into two categories, one is the biomedical industry, the other is the electronic information industry.

At present, the electronic information industry develops very rapidly in Hangzhou, with an average annual growth rate of 30%. The output value of the electronic information industry in 2006 is about 130000000000 yuan, which has accounted for 17% of the total industrial output value (generally accounting for 20%, it can become a pillar industry of a city).

The reasons for the rapid growth of Hangzhou's electronic information industry are related to the highly developed leisure culture industry.

Generally speaking, the traditional manufacturing industry needs energy and resources more.

In September 5, 2007, Hangzhou hosted the first electronic information fair, mainly sponsored by the Hangzhou municipal government and the Taiwan electric and electronic industry association.

Why did the Taiwan electrical and electronic industry association choose Hangzhou?

The main reason is that Hangzhou has the support of leisure culture, which is the same as the International Consumer Electronics Exhibition (the largest consumer technology trade exhibition in the world) held annually in Las Vegas.

The Hangzhou municipal government has long realized that its strength is here.

To attract investment from enterprises such as electronic information, biomedicine, new energy, new materials, and environmental protection equipment manufacturing, it vigorously creates a good high-tech entrepreneurial environment.

Tong Guili said that the municipal government is very supportive of the strategy of environmental support, because Hangzhou has no deep water harbor and no resources superiority, so the environment is the biggest advantage.

Another advantage of Hangzhou is talent. There are 36 universities and 380 thousand students.

By 2010, the number of students in Hangzhou will reach 500 thousand, and the most advanced technology industry needs talents.

It can be said that where there are suitable talents, there are high and new enterprises.

Although the beautiful Hangzhou is a gift from nature, the lack of systematic protection will gradually lose its appeal.

Since 2002, the Hangzhou municipal government has implemented the comprehensive protection project of West Lake. In the past five years, West Lake has carried out a comprehensive protection and renovation of the "southeast, northwest and China".

Now West Lake has reproduced its original appearance 300 years ago. The water environment and water quality of the scenic area have been improved, and many historical attractions have been restored to West Lake.

Tong Guili said the Hangzhou municipal government was willing to spend a lot of money on environmental protection. In 2007, its investment was estimated at 6 billion 500 million yuan.

People feel that West Lake is becoming more and more beautiful.

Hangzhou has also made great efforts in urban management.

Every year, 5% of Hangzhou's land pfer fees are put into urban management.

People who have been to Hangzhou will feel that they are neat and clean.

In terms of urban roads, the municipal government is concerned not only with the main roads, but also with the renovation of branch roads and back streets.

Nowadays, there is no visual pollution and no overhead line.

Some infrastructures were also sorted out, and special attention was paid to the excavation and collation of some historical fragments and cultural fragments. As a famous historical city, Hangzhou has a deep cultural background and many elements scattered in the blocks.

In the process of road renovation, the municipal government attached great importance to preserving these elements and debris.

Tong Guili is in charge of foreign affairs.

She said many foreign delegations were surprised that there was such a beautiful, delicate, orderly and vibrant city in China.

Generally speaking, leisure cities are slow paced, but Hangzhou is full of vitality.

Despite the 2 million 600 thousand foreign population, Hangzhou is in good public order.

Song Zhusheng, deputy general manager of SIEMENS Hangzhou high voltage switchgear Co., said Hangzhou could be regarded as one of the safest cities in the country.

"The foreign employees of our company are driving their own activities and have not encountered any unsafe conditions."

One of the reasons for better policing is strict community management. Every community has police officers. He knows all the people in his community, including the floating population.

The phoenix tree planted the phoenix tree, attracting Golden Phoenix.

By the end of 2006, Hangzhou had introduced 87 enterprises from 53 world top 500 enterprises.

Many factories that set up factories believe that building a green city in Hangzhou is very important.

Song Zhusheng said that advocating green cities is a contradiction with industrial enterprises, because developing industries will consume energy and create pollution. But he feels that the Hangzhou municipal government has handled fairly well, mainly developing new and high technology industries that are consistent with local characteristics.

Song Zhusheng has visited many parts of China, and he has seen that some small cities have also ventured to put forward the need to build big cities and develop large industries, and whether local energy and resources are matched or not will cause irreversible damage to the local environment.

Besides the attractiveness of the urban environment, the service level of the local government is also an important weight to attract foreign investment.

The world bank published an assessment report on the investment environment of 120 cities in China in November 2006. The number of days for government agencies to deal with enterprises was 8.1 days in Hangzhou, the shortest city in mainland China, and 31 days in Shanghai.

Song Zhusheng said that in 1993, SIEMENS needed to build a high voltage switch base in the mainland of China. The company first inspected industrial cities such as Shanghai, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenyang and Xi'an, and Hangzhou was not at the beginning of the inspection list.

After nearly two years of investigation and negotiation, by the end of 1994, SIEMENS's talents came to Hangzhou for inspection.

At the beginning of 1995, they began negotiations with Chinese partners in Hangzhou, and finally selected Hangzhou.

Why did SIEMENS choose Hangzhou?

From the perspective of hardware investment, Hangzhou is still good. It is closer to Shanghai, with more convenient pportation and more talented people.

More importantly, Hangzhou has a relatively good soft investment environment: the service consciousness and level of the government are satisfactory.

Tong Guili said that innovation in government management and service is also very important.

The management innovation in Hangzhou is reflected in the gradual reduction of the examination and approval links in the past two years and the improvement of the efficiency of examination and approval: the parallel examination and approval have been launched.

In 2007, it was proposed to recompress 20% in the original time. This is a quantitative and rigid requirement.

In terms of service innovation, the relevant departments in Hangzhou know the needs of foreign invested enterprises and implement new service initiatives on this basis.

Based on this, the municipal government has a communication channel, and the government can hear the voice of the enterprises in time. The enterprises can find the government quickly and conveniently. In addition, the government has also put forward "four or four means".

Other practices also include the establishment of a luncheon system every quarter.

This is a luncheon for consulting services.

Every year, there is also a "foreign service month". Although services are throughout the year, services are further optimized through the form of service month.

In addition, the "contact ambassadors" are also sent to foreign enterprises.

By 2006, the Hangzhou contract made use of foreign capital of 5 billion 380 million US dollars, an increase of 34.33% over the previous year, and the actual position reached 2 billion 260 million US dollars, an increase of 31.68%.

From January 2007 to July, the contract utilized foreign capital was US $2 billion 838 million, an increase of 42.4% over the same period, and the actual utilization of foreign capital was US $1 billion 729 million, an increase of 47.9% over the same period last year.

In the way of attracting foreign capital, it is not to pick up basket or dish, but to choose business to attract capital and invest scientifically.

Tong Guili said that Hangzhou's development in recent two years has benefited from further opening up, and so is the future.

But how can we improve the level of opening up at a high starting point?

The municipal government has proposed that large projects should be recruited to recruit leading projects, which should be consistent with Hangzhou's industrial development oriented projects.

Recently, Hangzhou has attached great importance to the development of the software outsourcing industry. It is also the first batch of 11 service outsourcing cities approved by the Ministry of Commerce.

Hangzhou has always regarded investment promotion as one of the driving forces of urban development, and will continue to attract foreign investment in the future.