Fuxin
From China Liaoning Business Guide
Contents |
A City of Power
Fuxin, located in the northwest of Liaoning Province, used to be one of the four main mining bases of China. Fuxin Power Plant was the biggest coal power plant in Asia. Still today, Fuxin is known as the "City of Coal and Power". The total area of Fuxin prefecture is 10,445 square kilometers, with a total population of 1.9 million. It administrates five districts and two counties, which are Haizhou District, Taiping District, Xihe District, Xinqiu District, and Qinghe District. The two counties are Fuxin Mongolian Autonomous County and Zhangwu County.
Geographical Location and Resources
Fuxin is a transportation hub in the west of Liaoning Province. It is convenient to start off from the city down south to Jinzhou, Beijing and Tianjin and up north to Tongliao and the mining area along the Huolin River. To the east of the city are Shenyang and the coastal cities, and to the west Chaoyang and Inner Mongolia’s Chifeng.
Fuxin is 170 kilometers from the provincial capital of Shenyang, and 148 kilometers from the Port of Jinzhou by highway. It takes 5 hours driving from Fuxin to Beijing by expressway. Fuxin-Shenyang Expressway provides the city with an opportunity to conduct closer exchanges with the cities in the center of Liaoning. Shenyang Taoxian International Airport is the closest airport to Fuxin.
Fuxin has a variety of mineral resources with major reserves in 228 locations. Silica sand, limestone, zeolite, perlite, fluorspar, bentonite, and granite are being exploited. Medical stone and agate reserves are rich as well. Fuxin is regarded as one of the main sources of gold. But with about one billion tons, the coal reserve tops all others. Annual coal production of Fuxin exceeds 10 million tons and the area of proven reserves is 825 square kilometers large. Energy resources also include natural gas and oil. To further explore the energy resources, Fuxin is looking for partners to improve the power industry and develop natural gas and oil production.
Economic Development
The regional GDP of Fuxin was 23.4 billion RMB in 2008 (about 3.4 billion USD). Largest contributor to the GDP was the secondary sector with 9.4 billion RMB (1.3 billion USD), followed by the tertiary sector with 8.8 billion RMB (1.3 billion USD). Fixed assets investment was 14.1 billion RMB (2 billion USD). The average salary was 21,558 RMB (about 3,101 USD), per-capita disposable income 10,113 RMB (1,455 USD), and the annual consumption per capita was 7,509 RMB (1,080 USD).
In terms of employment, both the service sector and the primary sector ranked before industry. Of the total 1.2 million employees in 2008, 425,000 were in the tertiary sector and 391,000 in the primary sector, among them 44,842 in mining alone.
On the basis of its resource endowment and its industrial foundation, the city is focusing on the development of the following industry clusters: forest products, leather, hydraulic equipment, and fluorine chemistry. The city has been giving priority to the construction of key projects in these areas, which has boosted the development of related industries.
Agriculture is also a main element in Fuxin’s economic development. The technology-based Liaoning National Agricultural Science and Technology Park is one of the first 21 agricultural parks in China. With rich agricultural resources, the city is a main producer of grain and livestock. In the production of grain, cattle and sheep per capita, Fuxin ranks top in Liaoning.
| Category | Billion RMB | Billion USD | Growth Rate |
| Gross Domestic Product | 27.0 | 3.8 | + 15.0 percent |
| Investment in Fixed Assets | 24.0 | 3.4 | + 70.6 percent |
| Financial Revenue | 18.6 | 2.6 | + 27.3 percent |
| Actually used Foreign Direct Investment | 64.1 | + 24.0 percent |
Foreign Investment and Foreign Trade
Fuxin approved 12 foreign-funded enterprises in 2008. New investment also went into in 7 established projects, with a combined foreign capital of 162.1 million USD. The new FDI was double the figure of 2007, mainly due to the construction of Fuxin Sumirin wood products project, invested by Sumitomo Forestry Co., Ltd. (a Global Fortune 500 company). This project is a major step in the construction of the city’s forest product industry cluster, with a total of 2 billion USD to be invested.
Other projects with an investment of over 10 million USD each included Hong Kong Lida Casting Company, South Korea’s Shunde Antifreeze Solution Company and Fudeli Renewable Energy Company. In 2008, the total volume of foreign trade in Fuxin amounted to 111.6 million USD, of which 6.3 million USD was import and 105.3 million USD export.
Living in Fuxin
Although some distance from Shenyang and coastal areas, living in Fuxin is pleasant. There are shopping malls, department stores, and supermarkets in the town, such as New-mart, Dashang Qiansheng Department Stores, New World, and more. Four-star and three-star hotels are happy to welcome travellers from China and abroad.
