Zhejiang Merchants Deem that the Ancient City Xi’an is in the Golden Period of Its Development Now

Xu Guanju, member of the CPPCC National Committee, vice chairman of All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce and chairman of Transfar Group

Nan Cunhui, chairman of Zhejiang Federation of Industry and Commerce and chairman of Chint Group

Sun Jianguang, executive vice president of Zhejiang Chamber of Commerce of Shaanxi and general manager of Shaanxi Jingying Machinery Manufacturing Co., Ltd.

Zhang Rugang, general manager of Shaanxi and Zhe Jiang Sheng Steel Structure Limited Company

Chen Dongxu, general manager of Xi’an Romon Career Apparel Marketing Co., Ltd.

Zhu Hongbo, general manager of Shaanxi Baiyue Trading Co., Ltd.

Many of them are from Zhejiang and live in Xi’an, they are major entrepreneurs in their industry, and even some Xi’an people say: “Zhejiang people earn all money.”

On December 9 of last year, Wang Yongkang took the post of Xi’an municipal party secretary, and Wang who once worked in Zhejiang for many years brings the cordial feeling of home to the Zhejiang merchants who have taken root in Xi’an for many years and is attempting to make a living in Xi’an. Since this year, Wang has frequently participated in investment topic discussion of Zhejiang merchants; new information from NPC&CPPCC says: a series of heavy investment action of Zhejiang merchants is underway.

More and more Zhejiang merchants will come to Xi’an for business, so how they feel about Xi’an? What's the Xi’an they expect? Now listen to their answers.

Zhejiang merchant giants' layout in Xi’an

On environment, pro-business atmosphere is increasingly good

Now, Xi’an has numerous important strategic opportunities and is at the forefront of westward opening. These opportunities are precious for entrepreneurs, including Xu.

Long-term attention to Xi’an logistics development allows Xu to have a good understanding of both Xi’an logistics location and challenges in Xi’an logistics industry; “there are more than 40 logistics stack yards of different sizes within 5km away from the urban center to east, north and west sides of Xi’an main urban area, which forms ‘three-side containment’ to the urban center, restricts expansion of urban space and influences functions f traffic hub.”

In this regard, Xu said: “we will construct ‘one city, two ports and three centers’ in Xi’an and build integration platform of producer services and integrate it into ‘national network’, so as to provide overall logistics layout to Xi’an and comprehensively enhance urban development competitiveness at supply chain level.”

The so-called “two ports” means that respectively construct “highway port city logistics center” in Xixian New Area and Xi’an International Trade and Logistic Park outside the 2nd ring of Xi’an to form “large logistics overall layout of one city with two ports” and expand urban upgrading and development space. Construct “three centers” on the basis of “two ports”, which includes internal supporting of green intelligent distribution and external connection of “city logistics center” of national highway logistics main channel, so as to enable high effective integration of the west highway logistics goods allocation and city distribution logistics and the “large data center of west regional logistics” of the optimum layout as well as provide “integrated service platform of logistics + finance + Internet supply chain” of logistics, supply chain, finance and other systematic productive services for manufacturing industry.

Xu is confident in investment environment of Xi’an: “now, Xi’an takes investment promotion as ‘the No. 1 Project’, pays special attention to investment environment and requires leading cadres at all levels to properly serve as ‘waiter’ and render ‘five-star services’ to enterprises; improvement of such soft investment environment makes us feel better pro-business atmosphere.”

On rooting, “new Xi’an persons” start “second undertaking” in Xi’an

Nan gives himself an interesting positioning: “development in Xi’an will be our ‘second undertaking’, and I will be a ‘new Xi’an person’ like secretary Wang.” Now, Nan has a new identity - economic counselor of Xi’an municipal government. He sets himself a “small goal” that total investment amount in Xi’an will have exceeded RMB 30 billion Yuan by the end of 2020, which includes that grid-connected installed capacity of Xi’an roof photovoltaic power generation project reaches 500MWp, the amount of investment is about RMB 4 billion Yuan and more than 520,000 tons carbon dioxide emission reduction is enabled; invest more than RMB 10 billion Yuan to construct five power distribution network systems and establish two power purchasing and selling companies; invest more than RMB 10 billion Yuan to introduce relevant equipment manufacturing industry. Completion of these facilities will help Xi’an become the new energy demonstration city.

"With profound cultural deposits and obvious resource advantage, Xi’an has many colleges and universities as well as research institutions, so Xi’an is with obvious science and technology and talent advantages; all these and construction of amazing Xi’an proposed by secretary Wang bring new opportunities to development of Xi’an." Nan said: "when in Zhejiang, provincial party committee has made advanced demands on private enterprises, and Zhejiang enterprises have cultivated ‘Zhejiang spirit’ - to work as needed and to spearhead; now in Xi’an, with the change of the overall idea from top to bottom, enhancement of governmental service consciousness and improvement of service efficiency, resource advantage and strong development vigor also make Zhejiang entrepreneurs see business opportunities and new development space.”

Nan revealed that next, Chint Group will actively participate in international metropolis construction of Xi’an, carry out all-around and multi-level comprehensive cooperation in fields of smart energy, smart finance, smart city, intelligent transportation, smart logistics, intelligent manufacturing and technology research and development, and develop innovative development mode which integrates combination of industry and finance, combination of industry and city and combination of industry and research.

Feelings of Zhejiang merchants in Shaanxi for development

On cooperation, large group of Zhejiang merchants will come to Xi’an for investigation this year

Sun came to Xi’an in 1986 and is the forerunner of Zhejiang merchants settling down in Xi’an. On the phenomenon of Zhejiang merchants’ investment in Xi’an, Su said “the momentum is very vigorous”. Just take Ningbo merchants (Ningbo business companies) as the example, and several batches of them plan to come to Xi’an for investigation this year. “Overseas Chinese merchants from Ningbo have already determined to come to Xi’an for investigation on the 20th of this month. Ningbo Hong Kong Fellowship Association (Ningbo enterprises in Hong Kong) is also discussing relevant issues and Ningbo municipal leaders will lead these enterprises for investigation at the scheduled time.

Why are people confident in future development of Xi’an? Su said: “secretary Wang once worked in Zhejiang, and he will bring some good policies, good working concepts and good service concepts of Zhejiang to Xi’an.” In addition, Xi’an has policy opportunities as the new starting point of the Belt and Road, so Zhejiang merchants are confident in future development of Xi’an and naturally they come one after another.

On idea, they hope more and more Xi’an people treat them as fellow- villagers

Zhang told the reporter that it was in 2003 that he came to Xi’an to start up business.

“We didn’t adapt to new environment when we just arrived in Xi’an.” In Zhang’s opinion, “there are many personality and concept differences between Xi’an people and Ningbo people, and these differences exist from workers to some enterprise leaders. The concept differences are reflected in economic activities more or less.”

Zhang took two examples, for example, it is very common for Zhejiang people that two persons separately invest RMB 500,000 Yuan and they borrow RMB two million Yuan to run a company. People possess very strong cooperative awareness, and the good reputation can earn help people obtain investment and efforts, and the interaction is frequent. But Shaanxi people are relatively prudent. It is possible that a Zhejiang farmer still do farm work today and pack up for outgoing business tomorrow when knowing business opportunity somewhere after a call. But Shaanxi people may hesitate a lot for outgoing business.

In recent years, development of Zhejiang merchants in Shaanxi has been better and better. Zhang said with a smile: “many Shaanxi people think Zhejiang merchants earn all money. Actually, we believe that if we behave ourselves and are steadfast in work and life, we will run enterprises successfully. We hope more and more Xi’an people treat us like fellow villages.”

On economy, rural people’s becoming rich can activate consumption environment

Chen came to Xi’an to start up business in 2007. In his eyes, “great changes have taken place to Xi’an in the past ten years. There are many business opportunities in Xi’an and my life here is joyful, so I stay in Xi’an. “Since the company is a sales enterprise, Chen is very sensitive to consumption differences between Xi’an and cities in south China. Chen said: “polarization of consumption is the biggest difference between cities in northwest region and cities in Zhejiang, and high-end and low-end consumption is more serious. And the cause lies in large income gap.”

Chen said: rural population occupies 70% of total population, and the whole place is rich when rural pollution is rich. “Many villages in Jiangsu and Zhejiang have their characteristic industry. Seedling cultivation is the characteristic industry of my hometown Fenghua. The industrialization guarantees income of every family.” Chen hope that villages in Shaanxi can find their own development road, for example, some villages in Shaanxi have achieved certain success in e-commerce and tourism in the two years. When rural people become rich, Shaanxi consumption environment will be activated and Xi’an will obtain better development.

On future, development prospect of Xi’an is very promising

Zhu came to Xi’an to start up business in 2008. Zhu’s steel plate and steel businesses are very successful.

On expectations of Xi’an, Zhu is very confident: “I greatly believe that future development Xi’an is very promising!” She takes her enterprise as the example, “from the Spring Festival to today, our steel shipment has been 10,000 tons per day, which is very flourishing. The season of sales is coming, the work on construction site starts, so our business will be flourishing.”

Zhu said: “this year is the year of great development for Xi’an. In the past, many Zhejiang merchants are afraid to come to Xi’an for development due to lack of understanding, the far distance and concern of maladjustment to local policies and business situations. Now secretary Wang works here and introduces Xi’an to the external, now local Zhejiang merchants in Zhejiang have come into a bottleneck and the production cost is very high, so it is a good opportunity for them to come to Xi’an for development.”

Zhu said with a smile: “certainly, we also hope the government can provide more support, more help and more intimate services to investment and development of Zhejiang merchants.”