In 2000 China started a develop-the-west campaign. The Chinese government offers preferential policies to the western region in terms of capital input, investment environment, internal and external opening-up, development of science and education, and human resources, thus making western China a land of great development. In the three years between 2000 and 2002, construction of 36 key projects was started in western China, involving an investment of over 600 billion yuan.
The western region includes nine provinces and autonomous regions, i.e., Gansu, Guizhou, Ningxia, Qinghai, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Tibet, Xinjiang, and Yunnan, in addition to Chongqing Municipality, and covers two-thirds of the nation's territory, with a population making up 22.8 percent of the nation's total. Western China is rich in mineral, energy (including hydropower), tourism and land resources. Eastern China on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River has long coastal lines totaling 14,000 km while western China on the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, bordered by more than 10 countries, has 3,500 km of land frontier lines.
The Chinese government is working out an overall plan for the development of the western region (besides the above nine provinces and autonomous regions and one municipality, the development includes also the Inner Mongolia and Guangxi Zhuang autonomous regions), and has formulated a sequence of preferential policies and measures for encouraging foreign businesspeople to make investments there. For instance, the Chinese government has decided that as for the foreign-funded enterprises in central and western China whose development is encouraged, within three years after the termination of the implementation period of the existing preferential tax policy, their income tax will be collected at the reduced rate of 15 percent; and that for the enterprises whose products are for export shall be exempt or reduced, the tax rate being 10 percent at the lowest. In addition, the provinces, autonomous regions and municipality in the west enjoy the limits of authority equivalent to those of the coastal provinces and municipalities, and may approve the foreign-funded projects with an investment of less than US$ 30 million on their own.
In 2002 the Ministry of Science and Technology approved a program for establishing the first national new- and high-tech industrial development belt of western China in Shaanxi Province. In accordance with the program, the "Silicon Valley of Western China" will integrate four national development zones, three provincial-level development zones and several dozens of industrial gardens and scientific and technological gardens on the Guanzhong Plain in Shaanxi Province, with the Shaanxi section of the Longhai (Lianyungang-Lanzhou) Railway as the axis. These sites will serve as bases for new- and high-tech industries, such as electronic information, software, biomedicine, aeronautics, astronautics and new materials. They also will further promote the development of the relevant scientific researches and industries and accelerate the economic development of the surrounding areas. At present, this area has attracted nearly 90,000 scientists and engineers, 850,000 specialized technical personnel, over 1,000 scientific research institutes and over 50 colleges and universities.
