Located in the southern part of Sichuan Province, the city of Zigong covers an area of 4,381 square kilometers and has a population of 3.28 million, including 1.1 million in the downtown area.
A transportation hub for the region, Zigong has been honored as a famous national historic and cultural city, a favorable tourist city, a World Geopark and a national garden city. It is home to the historic well salt culture, dinosaur ruins, lantern craftmanship and distinctive delicacies.
The lantern produced in Zigong has become globally renowned, and the city has become the only national cultural export base in Sichuan Province. Its annual lantern show attracts over two million tourists and it also stages over 30 lantern shows around the world each year. Locally-produced lanterns occupy 80 percent of the domestic market and 90 percent of the overseas one.
Zigong also has the largest dinosaur museum in China, along with distinctive urban blocks and towns featuring the salt culture, animation development, Sichuan opera and so on.
Situated in a convergence area for taking advantage of the Belt and Road Initiative and the Yangtze River Economic Belt, the city has prominent geographical and transportation advantages reaching to Chengdu, Chongqing, Guiyang, Kunming and several other large cities. It serves as a gateway city for the southward opening-up of Sichuan Province.
A solid industrial base has been completed, which benefits from good access to factors including water, electricity, natural gas, education producing some outstanding talents and finance provided by 80 institutions at present, as well as good health care facilities. There are 200,000 industrial workers, management and skilled personnel in the city.
Seven industrial parks have been established across the city, and one of them is a State-level high-tech zone with a planned area of 100 square kilometers, and there are two more at provincial level. Two industrial parks with the theme of modern lighting and food processing are under construction.
Being an open and inclusive city, Zigong has been honored as the best investment place by businessmen from Zhejiang province on the east coast and Guangdong province in the south. It is also acclaimed as the best investment place for global Chinese merchants.
With the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative, the Yangtze River Economic Belt, the development of Western China and the Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Zone, Zigong is now making full use of various opportunities to set up a State-level comprehensive bonded area and a free trade reform demonstration area.
It has created preferential policies for attracting investment, and has established an industrial development fund totaling 20 billion yuan. It aims to become an advanced manufacturing base, a new international tourism destination and a modern logistics distribution center.
The city has enhanced emerging industries covering such sectors as aviation, gas turbine, electronic information, energy conserving equipment and new materials, and has formed related industrial clusters in recent years.
With a planned area of 29.55 square kilometers, the Southwestern China Zigong Land Port will focus on the development of an international logistics passage connecting the city with the Beibu Gulf and Southeast Asia through promoting international logistics systems, trade, industrial cooperation and cultural exchanges.
Currently, a railway multi-mode transportation hub, a road port urban logistics center and an aviation freight transportation center are under construction to turn the city into a modern logistics distribution center in the near future.
