GUANGZHOU: Guangzhou Mayor Lin Shusen is expecting foreign investment to play a big part in building the city's high-tech business projects which will cost billions of US dollars.

Speaking at a work conference recently, Lin said the projects include an international biological island, Tianhe Software Industrial Park and Nansha Information and Consultancy Centre.

"Construction of these three projects will help build the provincial capital into a new and high-tech production base in southern Chinese regions that includes Hong Kong and Macao," Lin said.

Room for overseas investment is very large, Lin added.

Construction of the international biological island alone will cost more than 10 billion yuan (US$1.2 billion).

Pharmaceutical companies, research institutes, financial groups and banks from the United States, Germany, Britain and Japan have shown great interest in helping finance the project.

"It is expected to build Guangzhou into a production, technological, research, development and service centre in the pharmaceutical industry," Lin said.

The municipal government will also accelerate the construction of the city's software industrial park to build Guangzhou into a software production base, attracting plenty of big-name software companies to come to set up their firms or joint ventures.

Heavyweight offshore software companies, including Microsoft, IBM and Lotus, have all set up their branches, subsidiaries and joint ventures in Guangzhou.

And the Nansha Information and Consultancy Centre, the name of the project, will focus on the development of the information and communication industries which are playing important roles in the city's economic growth.

Located in Nansha Economic Development Zone at the mouth of the Pearl River, the centre will mainly attract investors from neighbouring Hong Kong.

In addition, Guangzhou will try to speed up its new and high technological industrial development this year to cultivate the city's new economic growing points, Lin said.

Digital telecommunication, new materials, electronics and traditional Chinese medicine will also be offered priority in the following years, Lin said.

Guangzhou will contribute to the province's development of the photon industrial belt, with Guangzhou as its core.

To this end, Guangzhou will try to attract personnel with high technological skills help realize its goal.

Private high-tech firms will be encouraged to expand, with the help of the city's preferential policies, Lin said.

The municipal government will also make great efforts to build a number of model high-tech enterprises and model projects this year.

(From Chinadaily)