With the fast development of sectors such as infor-mation technology, electro-mechanical integration, new household appliances, chemicals and petrochemi-cals, and automobiles and vehicle parts manufacturing, Suzhou reported a gross do-mestic product of 176 billion yuan (US$21.28 billion) and a revenue of 20.9 billion yuan in 2001, ranking sixth and seventh respectively among major Chinese cities.

Only Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Tianjin are stronger in terms of overall economic strength.

According to historical records, Suzhou, a renowned tourist city, topped other cities in terms of economic development for more than 800 years between the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279) and early Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), especially in farm produce, silk products, garments, and arts and handicrafts.

At that time, Suzhou and Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang Province, were widely reputed among people across China as "paradise on earth" for their wonderful scenery and booming economies.

Suzhou's economy, never-theless, had been declining gradually for one and a half centuries despite its reputa-tion as a "land teaming in fish and rice" (a land of plenty) and a noted "tourist city" until the early 1980s. For some 150 years, the peo-ple of Suzhou have aspired to return the city to its former glory and prosperity.

With the implementation of China's reforms and opening-up policy in the late 1970s, Suzhou has witnessed rapid economic growth, especially among the rising township enterprises and household electric appliances makers, but its economic status remained on the whole unchanged.

The turning point in the city's economic growth came in 1992 when it set aside a number of areas for economic development zones and adopted policies to attract foreign investment.

At present, the city has more than 5,000 overseas-funded firms, which have utilized more than US$26 billion in foreign investment.

Suzhou now boasts five state-level and 11 provincial-level development zones, covering a combined area of 190 square kilometers.

The total sales income from the new and high-tech businesses reached 118.4 billion yuan for 2001. These industries also accounted for some 50 percent of the city's total fixed assets investment, and half of the industrial goods exports as well as 30 percent of the city's total revenue last year. About 500,000 people are working in these fields.

At present, Suzhou's output of computer mice makes up 65 percent of the world market, and the city takes a major share of the world market in computer monitors, scanners, motherboards and lap-tops.

At the same time, the city also exports Philips color TV sets, Samsung refrigerators, Nokia mobiles, AMD CPU chips and Fujitsu digital cameras worldwide.

(eastday.com November 19, 2002)