Ties warming with sister city Cedar Rapids
Tangshan will expand exchanges with Cedar Rapids, its sister city in the United States, to promote foreign trade in 2013, according to the local government.
The year 2013 will be a time of tremendous progress in the fields of business, education and other major realms of cooperation as the US state of Iowa and China’s Hebei province prepare to celebrate the 30th year of their partnership.
Meanwhile, Tangshan and Cedar Rapids, major cities in Hebei and Iowa, respectively, will mark the 16th anniversary of the establishment of sister city ties, paving the way for more cooperation in the future.
The local government of Tangshan has a number of goals for expanding cooperation with its sister city. The first is to establish a system for sharing information to ensure smooth exchanges among companies from both sides.
More companies from Cedar Rapids will also be invited to Tangshan to benefit from China’s large market and opportunities in such diverse sectors as infrastructure construction, high- end equipment manufacturing, alternative energy, new materials, biology and information technology. In return, local companies will be encouraged to learn from their counterparts from the US.
In addition, the cooperation also extends to education. High schools will frequently host foreign exchange programs for teachers and students, providing them opportunities to learn from other cultures and broaden their horizons.
Companies and schools in the city will receive government support to seek more collaboration with their counterparts from Cedar Rapids. In September, the city government will again go to its sister city to negotiate more cooperation agreements.
The pair of sister cities have conducted many joint projects that have greatly benefited the two cities since they started their official friendship in June 1997, especially in the realms of business, education and culture.
The Luannan Thermal Power Plant in Tangshan is representative of early cooperation between the cities.
Constellation Energy, headquartered in Cedar Rapids, and its partner jointly invested $120 million in this thermal power plant in Tangshan in 2001 and have managed the plant since then.
Its installed generation capacity is 100 megawatts, meeting the large demand from the city and surrounding areas, and the plant has become highly profitable.
Recent delegations from Tangshan have included government officials, businessmen and school presidents, creating more avenues for cooperation.
Tangshan is offering many preferential policies, including tax breaks, to attract investments. Furthermore, companies from Tangshan can adopt various measures to cooperate with their foreign counterparts through mergers and acquisitions, and founding
joint venture companies.
The fast track
Tangshan, a port city in Hebei province located in the Bohai Bay, has not restricted its goal of attracting foreign investment to its sister city. It is targeting companies from around the world by improving the attractiveness of its investment environment and enhancing its global reputation.
The city has come a long way since the destruction of the earthquake in 1976. As one of the first economic zones China opened to the world in 1988, it has grown into a city with a strong economy, especially appealing to foreign investors.
By the end of 2012, the number of foreign-funded enterprises in Tangshan totaled 323, which brought in investments of nearly $123 million. The exports of the city reached $432 million last year, and its products were shipped to some 167 countries and regions.
Companies from more than 30 countries and regions, such as the United States, Japan, Hong Kong special administrative region, have injected money into this market. About 17 Fortune 500 companies have opened branches in Tangshan and attracted more companies to come, such as Fonterra Co-operative Group of New Zealand and SanofiAventis of France recently.
The city government has listed 300 key projects that are expecting foreign cooperation and aims to increase foreign investment by 20 percent by the end of this year.