Zibo City

I. Facts about Zibo
Situated in the middle part of Shandong Province, Zibo(N35°56-37°18′ E117°32′- 118°31′) covers an area of 5,938 sq. km, with the urban area of 2,961 sq. km. Zibo Lies in the temperate zone with semiarid, subhumid continental climate. Its annual average temperature is 13.90℃ with annual average rainfall of 628 mm.

Zibo City is characteristic of its group city structure, with Zhangdian District, Zichuan District, Boshan District, Zhoucun District, Linzi District, Huantai County, Gaoqing County and Yiyuan County under its jurisdiction. There is a population of 4.09 million, among which 2.685 million live in the urban area.

II. Natural Resources
(1) Mineral Resources
There are 53 kinds of exploited minerals, among which 22 kinds rich in reserves have been exploited. They are mainly coal, iron, alumina, fire-resistant clay, limestone, porcelain clay and barite and various rare metals such as aluminum, cobalt, gold and sliver, the major reserves. The city is also abundant in the regenerative resources such as red clay, gangue and ash coal. Zibo has many minerals with large reserves, wide spread and high quality. The reserve of alumina accounts for 90% of the total in Shandong province, while fire-resistant clay accounts for 45.9% and high-grade iron ore accounts for 25%.

(2) Energy resource
Zibo abounds in crude oil and natural gas. Gaoqing Oilfield has a reserve of 14.69 million ton crude oil. Jinjia Oilfield has 31.71 million tons and some other gas fields like Huagou Gas Field all lies in Zibo. The annual water supply reaches 1.411 billion cubic meters. Underground water reserve is 996 million cubic meters.
(3) Tourism resource
Zibo has rich and characteristic tourism resources. It is named as “The Excellent Tourist City” by the National Tourism Administration of the P.C.R. The capital of Qi Dynasty of the Warring States (475-221 B.C.) was located in Linzi district. The city has a long history of 800 years with tremendous historic relics, which earn the name of “Underground Museum” for the place. It is the state-level historical and cultural city. The established Ancient Chinese Vehicle Museum and the Sacrificed Horse Pit in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty (770-256 B.C.) are famous tourist resort among home and abroad. The hills, rivers, forests, wells and caves in Boshan and Yiyuan integrate into an organic whole. The rich natural resources esp. limestone caves are rare in the northern areas of China. Zichuan has the former residence of Pu Songling, the World King of Short Stories. The original Liaozai (the name of the residence) Park was built there. The Horse Hoofing Lake in Huantai and the Big Reed Lake in Gaoqing with blue water present a picture of rivers and lakes.

Zhoucun still keeps the site of ancient trade city in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). It is regarded by some experts as the museum group that displays the development of Chinese national business.

III. Infrastructure
Transportation
Zibo is a key transport pivot city. The density of railways and highways ranks top in China. The railway is 558 km long in the urban area. Jinan-Qingdao Line, Xindian-Tai’an Line, Zibo-Dongying Line and Beiing-Shanghai Line converge here. There are 19 main highways extending to all directions. The highway mileage is 3,000 km. The density of the highway is 52.4 km /100 sq.km. Jinan-Qingdao Expressway runs across the city from west to east. Binzhou-Laiwu Expressway goes through form north to south. Expressways connect all the districts and counties in Zibo. It is only 70 km from the center of Zibo to Jinan International Airport, and 210 km to Qingdao Port. The air and sea shipping are within easy reach.
Telecommunication
Zibo is the center of post handling and axis of telecommunication in central Shandong Province. The capacity of fixed telephone is 1.3 million sets and more than 60% households use telephones. The capacity of mobile phone is 700,000 sets with over 400,000 users. The optical fibre cable in use is 5,400 km long and there are 13,000 lines for long-distance telephones. The basic platform of telecom broad band network and e-business system has been put into operation.

Public Utilities
The city has complete infrastructure and supportive public service facilities, enjoying a strong overall service function.

Daily Urban Public Water Supply: 920,000 cu. m
Daily Power Supply: 29.97 million kw/h
Load of Electric Network: 1.41 million kw/h
Urban Gas Popularization Rate: 99%
Urban Centralized Heat Popularization Rate: 85%

Standard Land Price (issued in 1998) (Yuan/sq. m)
Commercial Land Industrial Land Housing Land
Grade 1 920 400 540
Grade 2 820 260 350
Grade 3 600 220 300
Grade 4 420 190 220
Grade 5 260 120 130
Grade 6 130 70 90
Grade 7 90 50 70

IV. Economic Development
Overall Economy
Zibo ranks among the top 50 cities with comprehensive economic strength in China. The city’s GDP was RMB 78 billion yuan in 2002 with the proportions of agriculture, industry and tertiary industry of 6.3%, 58.2% and 35.5% respectively.

Industry
Zibo is a national key industrial base. An output of RMB 102.5 billion yuan was achieved by the industrial enterprises of large scale in 2002. Zibo is known for its traditional industries such as mining, porcelain making, color glazing and silk. Now it has shaped an industrial system with 35 main categories such as petrochemical, medicine, building material, machine building, textile, light industry and electron. Up to 100 commodities have taken an important place in the province and the nation, such as petrochemical products, medicine, oxidized aluminum, pesticide, water pump, electric machinery, abrasive grinding machine, medical appliance, wall and ground bricks and jean. Some high-tech products such as new materials, refined chemical, e-info and biochemical are taking shape. There are 15 province-level corporation groups in Zibo. Qilu Petrochemical Co., Ltd. is a united petrochemical corporation with a large scale. Shandong Aluminum Industry Co., Ltd. is the earliest aluminum industry base in China. Xinhua Group is the national key pharmaceutical production base.

Agriculture
Zibo is advanced in agriculture and is listed by the state as the trial demonstration area of agricultural modernization in the Huang/Huai Sea Plain. Agricultural mechanization exceeds 78%. Huantai County, regarded as “The Barn of the Northern Shandong Province”, is the first County with output over one ton/ per mu in north China. Gaoqing cotton and Yiyuan fruit products respectively rank among the top 100 strong counties in China.

Service
Zibo is an important collecting and distributing center of commodity and trade center in Shandong Province. The key wholesale markets in the province include Qilu Petrochemical Town, Zichuan Garment Department, Zichuan Building Material Town and Zhoucun Textile Big World. Year 2002 saw RMB 23.078 billion yuan of total volume of retail sales of consumption goods in Zibo city. The production element market of finance, security, technology and human resources tends to perfection. Real estate industry, tourism and IT industry are showing a trend of rapid developing.

V. Opening Up
Year 2003 saw 169 foreign capital projects with contractual foreign capital of US $616 million (actual usage of foreign capital of US$351million). The major foreign investors are from Hong Kong, US, Tai Wan, Singapore, Germany, Korea, Canada, Japan and the UK etc countries and regions. MNCs like Simens of Germany, DMC2 of Japan, Asahi of Japan, Nichimen Co, Tech Group of US, McDonald and KFC etc have been attracted to invest in Zibo in succession.

In 2003, the total amount of export and import of the city reaches USD $1.93 billion, 46% over the year earlier. Export amounts to US$1.01 billion, 34.6% over the year earlier. Zibo has economic cooperation and trade relations with over 120 countries and regions in the world.

Zibo has 30 sister cities such as Illinois of the US, Lochois of France, Kamo of Japan and Novograd of Russia.

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