Statistics available show that the economic growth rate disparity between the western region and the rest of China has dropped to 0.6 percentage points in 2002 from 1.5 percent points in 1999 when the country initiated the western development strategy.

China's vast, arid western region is economically underdeveloped mainly because of its natural, historical and social factors. Its current per-capita gross domestic product equals to 67 percent of the nation's average and merely 40 percent of that of the eastern region.

Since the initiation of the western development strategy, however, China's western area has been turning increasingly more attractive to investors around the country with its plentiful natural resources and broad market potential.

The Kizilsu and Kirgiz border ports, both situated at the westernmost tip of west China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, for instance, has attracted two large investment projects.

An engineering company from eastern Jiangsu Province has invested 5 million yuan (US$600,000) in a project with a local firm to prolong the shelf-life of local grapes and figs, which are produced in large quantities and high quality in Xi'an, but cannot be sold elsewhere in the country or abroad due to deterioration.

Dai Naiping, an astute businesswoman from east China, funneled 15 million yuan (about US$1.8 million) into the prefecture, which has 1,170 kilometers of border, with the intention of changing a tiny desolate business town into a lively booming cross-border trade center.

"The west belongs to us all, and we want to make profits here jointly with the people in the western area," said Dai.

It is understood that more than 10,000 enterprises and one million people from eastern Jiangsu Province are currently doing business in the western region, bringing investments totaling 100 billion yuan (US$12 billion).

"By investing in the west, eastern firms have not only helped to stimulate the development of the west, but also further developed themselves by engaging in new projects and new markets," said Li Quanlin, vice-governor of eastern Jiangsu Province.

Meanwhile, capital from overseas is also beginning to enter the west in increasing amounts.

According to a source with the Ministry of Commerce Monday, more than 100 foreign enterprises have invested in the western areas. A case in point is Southwest China's Sichuan Province, which has so far drawn 82 of the world's leading enterprises.

North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, in another example, had received 27 billion yuan (US$3.3 billion) and US$560 million of foreign capital last year alone, which made up 40 percent of the annual fixed assets input in the region.

"By working in cooperation with elsewhere in China, the western region has not only activated local markets but also attained advanced concepts and ideas about the market economy," said Jia Zhibang, governor of northwestern Shaanxi Province. "This, I am sure, is invisible but most valuable."

Meanwhile, prestigious Chinese economist Liu Wei held that common development through mutually beneficial cooperation had become a consensus between the east and the west, and their concerted efforts for decades would ensure a happy life and promising future for the people in the country's western area.

(Xinhua News Agency April 15, 2003)