Pierre E Cohade was impressed by how clean the city was and how his "green factory" in Dalian did well since he made more business trips there after being named chairman of Goodyear in Asia.

"We have established a 'green factory' with no contamination or pollution and in the past five years we have been trying to reduce energy consumption by collaborating with the Dalian government," Cohade said.

The Dalian government has attached great importance to building an environmentally friendly city by transferring the economic development model to energy-conservation, in an effort to attract Fortune 500 companies to invest in the city.

"I do believe that the environment is the sustainable strength," said Xia Deren, mayor of Dalian.

Premier Wen Jiabao said during his trip to Dalian on September 7 that an eco-friendly environment should be a key competitiveness of Chinese cities, together with technology and innovation.

Dalian is building and will establish environmentally friendly modern service sectors to achieve sustainable development, said Xia, listing four major areas for further development: modern logistics for an international shipping center; modern finance services related to the logistics center and shipping center; information technology, software and outsourcing center; and modern tourism development.

A surge in international interest as a center for offshore outsourcing has already attracted more than 12,000 companies, 84 of which are in the list of Fortune Global 500, to invest in Dalian and establish R&D centers, logistic and purchasing centers introduced by Xia.

Nicholas Sallnow-Smith, regional chief executive of Northeast Asia from Standard Chartered PLC, noted that cooperation between cities and businesses is much needed in terms of environmental protection and Dalian does it very well.

The environment protection industry, including solid waste treatment, waste water treatment and energy-saving technology, is also among the areas where foreign investment is encouraged.

Seawater was used to regulate the temperature at the main venue for the World Economic Forum. The seawater heat pump system harnesses the energy released by seawater temperature differences to provide buildings with air conditioning, bringing huge energy savings and environmental benefits.

"This was one of the efforts made by Dalian to host a 'Green Davos'," Xia said.

"Dalian is not only a model city in China, but it also has taken a leading role in enacting innovative environmental protection and in bringing about other features of an international city," WEF founder and Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab noted.

"Dalian has accelerated internationalization without sacrificing the environment," added Xia, saying the Dalian government has taken specific measures to build an ecologically friendly city.

"In the long run, we'd like to raise the quality and efficiency of human resources rather than consuming more natural resources," said Xia.

In 2006, while Dalian's GDP growth rate amounted to 16.5 percent, energy consumption decreased 4.4 percent per 10,000 yuan of GDP and emissions from major polluting sources were reduced by 12.5 percent.

Xia said that during the 10th Five-Year Plan (2001-05), Dalian's forestation rate reached 42.8 percent, which means every three people in Dalian enjoy 12 square meters of green space and the city plants 100 million trees annually.

Almost 150 projects that cause environmental pollution were under treatment, with treatment of 133 projects already completed. A total of 27 heavily polluting enterprises were closed down, merged, transformed or otherwise moved, thus reducing the discharge by 662 tons of sulfur dioxide and 1,433 tons of smoke and ash.

(China Daily 09/14/2007 page15)