Famous for its giant pandas and delicious food, Chengdu is also an economic powerhouse in the western region of China, after rapid economic development in recent years, especially in the service sector.

The capital of Sichuan province has taken the lead in the service sector in China's central and western regions, with its comprehensive competitiveness ranking fourth among China's 15 major cities, after Guangzhou, Hangzhou and Shenzhen in the developed eastern region.

Gross profit of Chengdu's service sector totaled 512.5 billion yuan ($79.86 billion) last year, accounting for 51 percent of its GDP. In the past nine months, the revenue reached 417.4 billion yuan, growing 10 percent year-on-year and accounting for 53.4 percent of local GDP.

The city has won a series of honors for its service industry from the central government, such as being named a national pilot city for service industry reform, a service outsourcing model city, an e-commerce model city, and a pilot city for cross-border renminbi settlement.

Forbes magazine listed Chengdu as one of "the next decade's fastest-growing cities globally", Fortune magazine recognized the city as one of "the world's best emerging business cities", and the World Bank deemed it a "benchmark city for the investment environment in inland China".

The city has been upgrading its traditional service industry, and making breakthroughs in emerging service sectors including finance, logistics, mobile e-commerce, conferences and exhibitions, animation and online games.

Storied history

The city has been a business hub in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River throughout Chinese history. It is the birthplace of jiaozi - the world's earliest paper currency.

Since being designated by the State Council as the financial center of the southwestern region in the 1990s, Chengdu has been upgrading its finance industry. Its current goal is to develop into a financial hub in the western region.

The Chengdu Financial City, founded in 2009 and covering about 5.1 square kilometers in the southern part of the city, is the major industrial area for Chengdu to develop its finance industry. It is now home to 244 financial institutions and more than 50 headquarters for non-financial companies.

By 2018, Chengdu Financial City is expected to be home to more than 1,600 companies, including 500 financial institutions and corporate headquarters.

Chengdu National Advertisement Park in the downtown area, the first of its kind in southwestern China, comprises of more than 300 companies covering an entire industrial chain including creative design, printing, electronic publishing and advertisements.

The advertisement park is expected to house more than 1,000 companies and 5,000 professionals by 2016, generating total annual sales revenue of 10 billion yuan and becoming a globally renowned demonstration park for the advertising industry.

Chengdu International Health City in Chengdu's Wenjiang district mainly develops the healthcare industry. With total planning area of 30 sq km, it is designed to develop into a world-class industry cluster of healthcare, medical services, rehabilitation and medical tourism.

Better services

To further boost the city's economic development, Chengdu has learned from the experience of the Shanghai Free Trade Zone in such major areas as investment management reform, trade facilitation, financial innovation and the transformation of government functions.

It has loosened access restrictions for foreign investment in logistics, accounting, e-commerce and the manufacturing sector. During the first nine months of 2015, the registered capital of newly established foreign-invested enterprises in the city totaled 7.8 billion yuan, an increase of 12.5 percent year-on-year.

Chengdu has simplified its process for capital registration and was the first city in western China to integrate a business license, organization code certificate and certificate of taxation registration into one document.

The city is also promoting reforms to its customs supervision system, and the facilitation of inspections and quarantine. Customs clearance procedures have been greatly simplified and optimized, with the time required to clear goods through customs reduced by more than 70 percent.

"We will continue to implement the experience of the Shanghai FTZ and other free trade zones to deepen reform and stimulate the market's vitality, making the business environment more internationalized and market-oriented," said an official at the Chengdu Municipal Commission of Commerce.

Chengdu will make use of its advantages as a pilot city in China's opening-up to the West, and is striving to build an inland free trade zone on the basis of Shanghai's experience, the official said.

Contact the writers through pengchao@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 12/10/2015 page7)