The investment environment in Zhejiang

Location Advantages On the southern wing of the Yangtze River Delta, Zhejiang boasts unique geographical advantages for "bordering rivers and seas, bridging the east and the west, and linking the south with the north". The advantages lie mainly in four aspects: Firstly, the Yangtze River Delta is becoming the most vigorous and promising area in China's economy. Zhejiang, as part of the Yangtze River Delta, is no doubt to enjoy enormous opportunities. With the continual acceleration of the construction of international economy, trade, finance and shipping centers in Shanghai, its huge convergence and radiation capacities are supposed to directly push the Yangtze River Delta area toward sustainable and sound development. Secondly, within the Yangtze River Delta, Zhejiang owns resources and advantages different from those in Jiangsu in its economic linkage with the central city, Shanghai. The development of Jiangsu is principally "along the River and roads, while Zhejiang faces the sea and enjoys ocean advantages, which is of great benefit for Zhejiang to develop the ocean economy, a global-market-oriented economy, port industry and logistics, etc. Thirdly, a number of geographical factors that used to encumber Zhejiang from being connected with Shanghai and integrated into the Yangtze River Delta are being removed, and new location advantages are turning into significant strengths in the process of economic integration with the Yangtze River Delta. For instance, the construction of the Bay Bridge will greatly shorten the economic distance between Zhejiang and Shanghai. Fourthly, the process of economic integration in the Yangtze River Delta is also the process of emergence of city clusters in the Yangtze River Delta with Shanghai as the center. In the urbanization process, industrialization and informatization would inevitably follow. According to international common practice, manufacturing industry will enjoy a prosperous development between the central city and node cities in a city cluster. This provides new opportunities for Zhejiang to construct an advanced manufacturing base, thanks to its location on the southern wing of the Yangtze River Delta and to its mid and final period of industrialization. Ecology Zhejiang Province has relatively independent geographical units and location advantages, and the ecological system features abundant diversity with a variety of biological breeds. Its environmental supportive system is only next to that of Tibet and Hainan, ranking the third in the country. The terrain slopes down from the southwest mountainous area to the northeast plain in a step-like manner, and the topography and water system are self-contained. The eight grand water systems in Zhejiang Province basically originate from the province itself and the water environmental system is relatively independent; the river networks in the plain region are intensely spread and the water system is soundly developed; the holistic quality of water in the rivers and lakes is fine, and the water quality of most of the rivers meets or is better than Grade III of the environmental quality standard for surface water. The mountainous areas are densely distributed with vegetation covered in forests. The forest coverage is one of the highest in the nation, with the rate in southwest Zhejiang even higher. Currently, 16 natural reserves at national level and 83 forest parks at provincial level have been established in the whole province. Zhejiang Province is one of the provinces which have the largest number of forest parks in the nation. Zhejiang is well-founded in terms of environmental protection and ecological construction. It is the fifth of the state-level ecological pilot regions. The overall quality of the ecological environment in the province is one of the best in the country. The tendencies of environmental contamination and ecological deterioration have been checked and the environmental quality has kept stable. Notable achievements have been made in developing an eco-friendly economy. Zhejiang took the early initiative in developing eco-friendly agriculture, eco-friendly industry and eco-friendly tourism and the favorable tendencies have sustained. The industry of green food and organic food such as tea, canned food, fresh fruit, grain, oils and etc. keeps developing by leaps and bounds. The eco-friendly industry, especially the environmental protection sector, has had rapid development. A batch of production-study-research bases and bases of specialty industries has been developed as a priority. Capitalizing on the rich resources of a beautiful landscape, a long history and rich cultural heritage in Zhejiang, the eco-friendly tourism in our province is booming, making Zhejiang an important tourist destination. Natural Resources Mineral resources There are more than one hundred kinds of minerals found in the province, of which non-metallic minerals are predominant. Twelve kinds of mineral reserves rank the country's top three, with stone coal, alunite, pyrophyllite, cement tuff, and building tuff reserves ranking first in the country, fluorite reserves ranking second, and diatomite ranking third. Those ranking among the top ten also include wollastonite, perlite, granite and zeolite. As to metallic minerals, silver, zinc, vanadium, cadmium reserves also rank top ten. Biological Resources The length of coastline, including island line in the province is 6,696 kilometers, of which there is 2,414 kilometers of mainland coastline, and 506 kilometers of deep-water coastline that can be planned to build berth of 10,000 tons, accounting for 30.7% of those in China. The water area in Zhejiang is China's largest fishery, and shallow water for breeding is more than 400 square kilometers. The sea basin in east China is an area for the tapping of oil and gas resources with good prospect. The intertidal mudflat resource along the coast is 2,886 square kilometers. In addition, the resources of marine tourism and marine energy are also very rich. There are more than 3,800 kinds of plants found in the province, and the forest area here is 902,040 hectares, with the coverage rate as high as 60.97%, known as China's “Southeast Botanical Treasure Place.” Ginkgo, usually called “the living fossil” and other 51 kinds of rare wild plants are included in the national list of protection. 689 kinds of wild animals are found here, including 18 kinds that are listed in the national first class protected animals. Energy The continental shelf is rich in oil and natural gas resources with a good tapping prospect. Water resource The annual average precipitation is 2,060.5 mm (equivalent to 213.47 billion cubic meters in total), and the total amount of water resource is 145.48 billion cubic meters, with water resource 2,656.2 cubic meters per capita. The total water consumption is 22.32 billion cubic meters in 2012, an increase of 1.4% compared with last year. The province has nine meteorological observatories with radar and satellite, 25 cloud map receiving stations, and 1,505 regional automatic weather stations.

New policies boost import of cosmetic products through Shanghai port

By October, Shanghai port had handled 487 cosmetic products’ registration, and 230 imported cosmetics products, six months after the Shanghai Free Trade Zone Administration introduced new policies regarding companies dealing in such products. In March, the administration introduced policies such as “do business first, register later.” During the trial period until December 21, 2018, for all the non-special purpose cosmetics imported through ports in Pudong New Area, the registration time has been shortened from three to six months to just five days. By October, major cosmetic companies such as L’Oreal, Shiseido, LG Household & Health Care Ltd had registered a total of 230 imported cosmetic products valued at US$13.82 million. The new policies also require the cosmetic companies to designate person liable in China, responsible for the products’ quality and customers’ safety. Also, products’ origin tracing system should be established to strengthen quality control. Shanghai Food and Drug Administration should also conduct product inspection in three months after the product’s registration, including the product’s production formula, production process, and production safety risk assessment.

Tianjin Port contributes to the new open structure establishment

Tianjin Port is accelerating establishment of the logistics system in Central China. The Zhengzhou marketing center is in place to promote construction of dry ports in Puyang and the southern part of Henan province and integrated development of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road. Moreover, the logistics system's construction has been quickened. Tianjin Port intends to be an obstacle-free modern multimodal transport channel. To date, it has opened bidirectional international trains from Moscow to Minsk, and expanded service to eastern Europe, connecting Russia, Mongolia, Central Asia and European countries, and countries along the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road. The Tianjin Port China-Mongolia-Russia economic corridor multi-modal transport project has been selected as a China demonstration project. The port focuses on the rising of Central China and China Western Development. It has established five market centers and 25 dry ports in Beijing, Hebei, Shanxi, Henan, Inner Mongolia autonomous region, Ningxia Hui and Xinjiang Uygur autonomous regions. It has also established ten sea-railway combined transportation channels and completed a modern logistics system in inland areas. Tianjin Port has also established relationships with shipping alliances. In the first ten months of 2017, its cargo throughput reached 12.8 million TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit), an increase of 5.6 percent over 2016; its Ro-ro automotive throughout was 880 thousand, 36 percent more than that of 2016; the freight volume by land transit was 50 thousand TEU, up 32.8 percent from 2016. Tianjin Port is contributing to implementation of the regional coordinated development strategy, promoting a new open structure and accelerating construction of maritime commercial power.

China’s gaming industry revenue expected to top 200 billion yuan in 2017

With an estimated revenue of over 210 billion yuan in 2017, China’s gaming industry has sped up its pace to go overseas, the latest report indicated. The report, issued by China Culture & Entertainment Industry Association in Beijing, pointed out that the improved quality of Chinese games and especially mobile games has accelerated its pace to go overseas. It has gone beyond the Southeast Asian market to reach markets in West Asia and Africa and even some in the US and Europe. “The gaming industry is becoming a key output for spreading Chinese culture around the world,” it added, predicting that more Chinese game companies would join the competition in the overseas market. Meanwhile, China has yet to tap into its full potential in the gaming market, which will grow along with the market development and changing consumption habits of younger generations. The estimated revenue of 2017 will see a 23.1 percent growth compared to that of 2016, added the report. Specifically, a large proportion of the revenue will be made by online games, which take up some 92 percent of the total revenue. In the first three quarters of 2017, market revenue of online games was 151.3 billion yuan. The annual data is estimated to reach 201 billion yuan. Some 51 percent of the online games’ revenue came from mobile games. In spite of the growing popularity of VR games, the newcomer in the industry remains at a low percentage rate, with an estimated annual revenue of 400 million yuan, up 28.2 percent year on year.

Hop aboard the Belt and Road “express train”

Three years after the first cargo train embarked on its adventure from Yiwu, China’s most famous commodities center, to Madrid, nine routes to Europe have been established for the intercontinental rail freights, which have become a carrier of Sino-European trade and communication. Linking Zhejiang’s Yiwu, the world’s largest wholesale market for small consumer goods, with the European commodity center of Madrid, the Yiwu-Madrid freight route was launched in 2014. It has seen 264 intercontinental trips so far, carrying 21,536 twenty-foot equivalent units. As of press time, the route has covered 8 countries, including Russia, Poland and France, boosting foreign trade in east China’s export powerhouse of Zhejiang. The booming intercontinental transportation has led to strong economic growth in Yiwu. The city’s total value of imports and exports has reached 48.88 billion yuan ($7.08 billion) in the first quarter of 2017, growing 23.72 percent year on year. Over 1.8 million kinds of commodities have been exported from Yiwu to 219 countries and regions in the world.

Lower tariffs expected to boost domestic consumer market: Industry insiders

Tariff cuts on a wide range of consumer goods will expand imports and further open up domestic consumer markets, financial news outlet Yicai reported on Nov 28. From next month, tariffs on 187 product categories such as baby formula, diapers, and Japanese toilet seats will be reduced from 17.3 percent to 7.7 percent on average, according to the Customs Tariff Commission of the State Council. The reduction will meet increasing domestic demand, as it allows Chinese consumers to buy cheaper and high-quality products that cannot be currently produced at home. Lower tariffs will also boost domestic consumption as it encourages people to buy imported products at home instead of overseas, analysts say. Tariffs have been cut four times on imported consumer goods since 2015. It is hoped that lower tariffs will encourage more foreign brands to invest and open branches in China, said Wang Wei, a researcher with the Institute for Market Economy, Development Research Center of the State Council. The tariff reduction also reflects that Chinese companies are narrowing the gap with their foreign counterparts in terms of middle-and high-end consumer goods manufacturing. “There is no need to protect the Chinese producers, who have already addressed their weakness through the supply-side structural reform,” said Zhang Jun, an economist with Morgan Stanley Huaxin Securities.