Central China city of Wuhan has been growing fast, and is aiming to build itself into the world’s Silicon Valley of optical fiber, report LYU CHANG and ZHOU LIHUA

Wuhan, capital of Central China's Hubei province, is among China's fastest-growing cities and home to significant economic activity, as the government encourages urbanization in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River.

Local planning officials estimate Wuhan's economy is growing at about 12.5 percent annually, and that gross domestic product should double in the next five years.

Employees work at a laboratory in YZY Biopharma Co Ltd in Wuhan, Hubei province. Wuhan offers high-quality human resources and a strong R&D capacity for companies. [Guan Xin / China Daily ]

But those strengths are not the city's only bragging points. Located at the intersection of the Yangtze and Hanjiang rivers, Wuhan is building itself into the world's Optical Fiber Valley.

Small startup enterprises and international powerhouses have flocked to the metropolis of more than 10 million people, attracted by talent resources and favorable government investment policies.

The dream of being a world-class Optics Valley is becoming a reality, as the city already tops the world in optical fiber and cable production.

It accounts for about 55 percent of the domestic market in these products and 25 percent internationally.

One of the driving forces is the Wuhan East Lake High-tech Development Zone, which generates more than 500 billion yuan ($81.7 billion) a year in revenue, accounting for more than half of Wuhan's GDP.

Dubbed the Optical Valley of China, it is also the birthplace of the first optical fiber and proprietary ultra-long-haul optical transmission system in the nation.

Other industries such as petroleum engineering, food processing, alternative energy, environmental protection and services outsourcing, are also forging ahead rapidly.

The annual output of the city's electronic information sector is projected to rise to 380 billion yuan in 2015 from 114 billion yuan in 2010.

Though far from the nation's booming coastal regions, Wuhan can offer benefits and preferential policies with incentives for startups, such as one-year interest-free loans and three years of free rent.

Nearly 6,000 foreign enterprises have set up operations in the city, and about 100 of the world's top 500 companies have invested in 124 projects in Wuhan.

Xia Yamin, deputy director of the administrative committee of the technological and development zone, said the focus now is on developing innovative companies.

The zone has maintained an annual growth rate of 25 to 30 percent for the past decade, but it could be difficult to keep up this pace in the next five years, given the much larger revenue bases.

"Innovation is the key for future growth," Xia said. "We should go beyond being a manufacturing base and become a magnet for economic development and innovation."

Going digital

Last year, Wuhan built a Software New City nearby. It's a core startup project of the Wuhan East Lake High-tech Development Zone, aiming to create Silicon Valley-type high-tech industrial clusters of innovation in Central China.

The high-tech development zone has forged agreements with the United States' Silicon Valley, and companies such as Oracle Corp intend to set up operations in Wuhan.

Shao Hui, general manager of Wuhan Software City Development Co, said that more than 1,000 world-class enterprises will set up their Chinese operations and offices in the software park.

There, they'll pursue software development and IT services, work on the Internet of Things and explore cloud computing.