NINGBO, in east China’s Zhejiang Province, was once known primarily for its bustling port. Now though, it’s building a name for itself as a global business hub. Between June 8 and 12, the city held three major events aimed at fostering foreign investment, international trade and development in a variety of emerging industries.

One of the recent events was the second annual China-Central and Eastern European Countries Investment and Trade Expo. One attendee, Balazs Gellert said he was confident the expo would help expand awareness of his company, Naturtex, Hungary’s leading quilt producer. What’s more, as the company’s managing director, he sees the event as an important opportunity to expand his business.

“Here we’ve already found some potential partners; at (our) booth we also had some talks with local distributers,” he explained.

Altogether, the expo featured 282 booths presenting consumer goods from 16 countries in Central and Eastern Europe. To bolster trade at the event, the Ningbo government invited prospective wholesale buyers and distributors from across the country.

Last year, Ningbo recorded 2.2 billion yuan (US$336 million) in trade with Central and Eastern Europe. It also emerged as one of the most attractive cities in China for foreign investment, which totaled 10.7 billion yuan in the first 11 months of 2015.

Also over the period mentioned above, the Ningbo government hosted the 15th China International Consumer Goods Fair. In fact, this event and the investment and trade expo were held in abutting areas of the Ningbo International Convention and Exhibition Center. Together, the two events drew more than 17,000 exhibitors and 1,000 purchasers.

Research and technology cooperation was a new highlight of this year’s fair. A separate hall covering 4,400 square meters was arranged for high-tech exhibitions outside the consumption goods area. Nuclear power technology, automobiles, face recognition systems and smart city management technology were showcased for potential business cooperation. A staff member from State Power Investment Corporation told Shanghai Daily that they were in attendance to drum up overseas interest in their latest nuclear technology — which can produce 1,500-megawatt of energy, making it one of the highest capacity nuclear systems in the world. On the other side, Spirit Slovenija, a public agency in Slovenia, was looking for manufacturing partners for a skiing center to be built in China.

Policy anchors

Exhibitions of this sort are just the first step for Ningbo officials. To anchor potential investment and business development, Ningbo has worked to improve its policy and economic environment. The city’s third recent event, China Zhejiang Investment and Trade Symposium, included a succession of conferences focused on economic development.

Ling Yun, deputy director of Zhejiang Province Economic and Information Commission said at the conference held last week that the rate of growth of industrial added value amounted to 6.4 percent in the first four months in the province, exceeding the 2015 figure of 4.7 percent. By contrast, costs for local entrepreneurs in the same period only climbed by 0.7 percent. The net profit of companies in Zhejiang was reported to have increase by 16 billion yuan by the end of April. The rate of GDP growth in Zhejiang Province is 7.2 percent, higher than the national figure of 6.7 percent.

“We are convinced and proud to say that companies in Zhejiang are competitive against those across the country,” Ling avowed.

This argument is further strengthened by a series of policy moves. Zhejiang Province initiated the reformation of tax regulations on land and buildings last year. By ranking companies based on their contributions to fiscal revenue, over 32,000 local industrial enterprises “above designated size” have been listed for evaluation, with the highly-ranked conferred with reductions and benefits while the laggards will be hit with added costs. Under this radical mechanism, Ling explained that “this will be an effective way to support the superior and eliminate the inferior.”

The government won’t simply cut costs for the companies, but differentiate supportive measures to optimize economic development.

Electricity fees have been lowered by 0.03 yuan per kilowatt-hour since January 1 this year, while rates for industrial users have been cut by 0.045 yuan per kilowatt-hour, easing the burden on enterprises by 3.8 billion yuan annually. In the meantime, the government further lowered overall costs by closing some private electricity facilities to ensure that users across the province are tapping into the same electricity network. Companies without self-supported power facilities are subsided by a reduction of 0.2 yuan for every kilowatt-hour used.

With these and other incentives, Ningbo has opened its door to foreign cooperation. By the end of 2015, local companies had attracted US$65.8 million of foreign capital. For example, Slovenia has subsequently invested in a local mould manufacturer, an electric device producer and food traders with a total of more than US$50 million.

More room for growth

Nevertheless, local authorities still have much work ahead of them. Ma Yu, a researcher of the national Ministry of Commerce said at the Zhejiang Investment and Trade Symposium that China still has space for improvement in terms of foreign investment, given that foreign direct investment in China only accounted for 7.9 percent of the global total last year, while in the 1990s the figure was up to 13.7 percent. Last year, US data showed that US$7-8 billion flowed into China for investment purposes, while Chinese FDI hit US$20 billion in the US.

China will continuously enhance the foreign business and investment environment, and Ningbo intends to capture the momentum. The government is actively steering the economy toward making use of its advantageous resources. Ningbo’s trial online commercial platform is aimed to promote trading between China and Central and Eastern Europe. Trading logistics is accordingly supported by a project backed by the governments of Ningbo and Poland. PAGO, Poland’s largest cold-storage shipper signed a letter of intent with the Ningbo government during the exhibition, agreeing to invest US$30 million to build a cold-storage shipping base in Meishan Port, Ningbo. With total capacity of 35,000 tons and temperature as low as minus 25 degrees Celsius, the base would serve as a freight station between China and Poland for more convenient trade of consumer goods.

Agnieszka Szymanska, investment director at PAGO, told Shanghai Daily that Ningbo is a better choice than Shanghai, since it is closer to ports and can provide more space for the project.

“Despite the more energetic international business environment in Shanghai, Ningbo provides more growth opportunities and government supports,” he said.

The recent exhibitions and conferences support each other, depicting Ningbo’s ambitions to expand and accelerate its economic development. Standing against the front gate of the China-CEEC Expo, Gellert from Naturtex was immersed with introducing his products to endless streams of visitors. He believes people in China will learn more about Western countries and make their purchases more wisely.

“It could be possible that Chinese consumers won’t stick to German brands for household products, but know that Hungarian producers also have high-end technologies,” he said.

G20 summit is to be held in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province in September to promote stability in international finance.

Zhang Wei, an officer in the publicity department of Ningbo said Ningbo offers a preview of the economic potential of China and Zhejiang Province.

“It is not only a demonstration of progress, but also a practical effort to add vigor into China’s economy,” said Zhang.