It is the largest automobile manufacturing base in China - but it has yet to find a decisive edge over other domestic car-making cities vying hard to become China's "Detroit".

It is one of the leading bidders for the country's "Optical Valley." But even a grand event like the Congress of International Commission for Optics next August can do little to help secure its leadership in this high-tech industry.

It is also the place where the first film of New China was shot. But to become China's "Hollywood" seems a dream never considered seriously by local authorities.

The city is Changchun, capital of Northeast China's Jilin Province. The potential of the city is great, but the difficulty to deliver it is of equal size.

As the country's campaign to revitalize Northeast China further deepens this year, the answer Changchun officials come up with to boost local development is accelerated industrialization.

"We have just made 2005 a year of fast industrial growth," announced Zhu Yejing, mayor of Changchun, at a press meeting on Thursday. This was just one of the many chances mayor Zhu seized to promote his city during the about-two-week session of the National People's Congress in Beijing.

It is reported that the city has arranged a special fiscal fund worth 80 million yuan (US$9.7 million) this year to speed up development of its industrial enterprises.

One of the reasons why Changchun has laid extra stress on facilitating industrial expansion, according to the mayor, is the intensifying competition pressure from other cities.

Changchun used to rank second only to Dalian in industrial output among all major industrial centres in the three northeastern provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning. But in recent years, not only have other cities narrowed the gap with Changchun, Dalian also doubled its lead in industrial output to more than 60 billion yuan (US$7.25 billion) in 2004.

"The other reason is the diminishing contribution the industrial sector made to Changchun's economic growth," noted Zhu.

Industrial growth has always outpaced that of local gross domestic product except last year when it fell 0.5 percentage points below the later.

"To push ahead with the three courses of industrialization, urbanization and industrialization of agriculture, the city must focus on boosting industrial growth," said Zhu. "Only fast industrial growth can help create jobs for the service sector."

To expedite industrial restructuring in Northeast China, the central government has adopted a series of preferential policies including an experimental consumption-based value added tax to reduce local enterprises' tax burden.

However, to raise the city's industrial growth to the target of 16.9 per cent in 2005, Changchun needs to foster a group of new key enterprises.

Source: China Daily