THIRTEEN PERCENT GDP GROWTH TARGET: PORT CITY LIANYUNGANG

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 06 SHANGHAI 000156 SENSITIVE SIPDIS STATE ALSO FOR EAP/CM, INR/EAP, EEB/TRA STATE PASS USTR FOR CHINA OFFICE - WINTER, WINELAND TRANSPORTATION ALSO FOR DAS JOEL SZABAT TRANSPORTATION ALSO FOR X1, X40 TRANSPORTATION ALSO FOR OFFICE OF INTERNATIONAL AVIATION USDOC FOR ITA DAS KASOFF, MAC/OCEA - SZYMANSKI E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: ECON EWWT EIND EFIN PGOV EAIR CH SUBJECT: THIRTEEN PERCENT GDP GROWTH TARGET: PORT CITY LIANYUNGANG SLOWING DOWN IN CHALLENGING 2009 REF: A. A) 08 SHANGHAI 239 ¶B. B) SHANGHAI 111 ¶C. C) SHANGHAI 117 ¶1. (SBU) Summary. Officials in Lianyungang, a major Chinese port in Jiangsu Province, have set their 2009 GDP growth target at 13 percent, a modest decrease from recent years' growth. Municipal Government and Party officials say that the Central Government and Jiangsu Provincial Government have committed to new infrastructure and industrial projects to foster growth in northern Jiangsu Province and surrounding areas and to make the port a locomotive for growth for seven inland provinces linked to the city by rail. The city can rezone for industrial use land originally set aside salt fields without time-consuming, cumbersome Central Government approvals. Lianyungang development projects include new rail and highway links, plans for a new international airport to be operational by 2016, new urban developments, and container terminal expansion and harbor dredging. The city aims to attract new investments to expand and diversify its new energy, new materials and pharmaceutical industries. The Chinese Academy of Sciences is involved in establishment of a new energy research center in Lianyungang, and an integrated gasification combustion cycle (IGCC) clean coal project should be soon announced, local officials said. The global financial crisis has had a serious impact on certain traditional industries in Lianyungang, but officials remain optimistic that those industries could be well on there way to recovery by summer 2009 and new projects and training for returned migrant workers would bode well for the city. Still, at the time of Congenoffs' early March visit, construction of several apartment projects appeared to have stopped, while a shipping container manufacturer had ceased operations, putting its workers on subsistence wages rather than formally laying them off. End summary. ¶2. (U) Pol/Econ Chief, Econ-coned Consular Section officer and Economic Assistant visited Lianyungang March 2-4 to discuss local economic development prospects and the impact of the global economic downturn. Our meetings included Lianyungang Party Secretary and People's Congress Chairman Wang Jianhua; Vice Mayor Shi Yan; Municipal Government Office Secretary Chen Chuang; senior officials from the Foreign Affairs Office, Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation Bureau, Small and Medium Size Enterprise Bureau, and Lianyungang Economic and Technological Development Zone Management Committee; Port of Lianyungang staff; and senior managers at the COSCO (Lianyungang) Shipyard Co. (ref C). We also met with professors from four local colleges and their students (hailing from as far away as Urumqi in China's northwestern Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region) to conduct the Consular Section's first visa outreach event in Lianyungang. ¶3. (U) With a population of 4.7 million and an area of 7,444 square kilometers, Lianyungang is comprised of three districts and four counties. In 2008, Lianyungang's imports from the United States (USD 390 million) exceeded its exports to the United States (USD 311 million),due to the large volume and value of U.S. soybeans brought into China through the Port of Lianyungang, according to Liu Mingtai, Vice Director of the Lianyungang Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation Bureau. Liu and port officials noted that the port handled 3 million TEU (container movements) in 2008, making it the largest port in Jiangsu Province and one of the ten largest ports in China. Ten container shipping lines serve the port. The port handled$4.4 billion in import and export trade in 2008, an increase of 36 percent over 2007. Throttling Back to Only 13 Percent Growth Target -------------- --- SHANGHAI 00000156 002 OF 006 ¶4. (U) Because of its location, assets, policy support and expected benefits under China's economic stimulus plans, Lianyungang has set a 13 percent GDP growth target for 2009, Municipal Government Office Secretary Chen Chuang said. Small and Medium Enterprise Bureau Director General Li Jianxing further explained that in 2008, Lianyungang's GDP growth was 14.8 percent, 2.3 percentage points below 2007 and below its 2008 growth target of 15 percent. In 2008/Q4, GDP only grew 10.8 percent, 5.1 percentage points below the first nine month in 2008, mainly attributed to spillover effects from the global financial crisis. While China has set itself a national `bao ba' (maintain eight percent) GDP growth goal for 2009, it is appropriate, if admittedly challenging, for Lianyungang to set its aim high to fulfill its assigned role as a locomotive of regional economic growth within China, Li said. Lianyungang's Assets: Location and Preferential Policies -------------- -------------- ¶5. (U) Vice Mayor Shi Yan said the Central Government and Jiangsu Provincial Government both are placing emphasis on development of Lianyungang due to its location between the Yangtze River Delta and the Bohai Rim, and because the Port of Lianyungang provides access for inbound raw materials and outbound exports for seven Chinese provinces linked to the city by railroads. Lianyungang is also the eastern terminus of the European-Asian Rail-Land Bridge linking Lianyungang to Rotterdam. One of the most important factors for attracting businesses to Lianyungang, Shi and other officials emphasized, is that land zoned as salt fields may be converted to industrial use by the Municipal Government; China's land policies make land zoned for agricultural use much more difficult to convert lawfully to industrial use. Planners and industries alike can envision major new initiatives in Lianyungang with some realistic hope of acquiring necessarily large pieces of land for such development with comparative ease. ¶6. (U) Vice Mayor Shi pointed to three examples of important policy support to Lianyungang's economic development. First, in 2008, the State Council issued guiding opinions on development of the Yangtze River Delta, in which Lianyungang's huge economic potential was noted. Development of Lianyungang will provide a locomotive force to development of Lianyungang and inland along the rail corridor to Xuzhou (also in northern Jiangsu) and on to Zhengzhou (in Henan),as well as along Jiangsu Province's coastal areas and up the Yangtze to Nantong. Second, the Jiangsu Provincial Government and Jiangsu Communist Party Committee have held special meetings about Lianyungang's future development and will provide full support to Lianyungang. Lianyungang will be a leader in rejuvenating the economy of northern Jiangsu. Third, the National Development and Reform Commission, in accordance with a request from the State Council, has established a team to plan for the development of Jiangsu's coast region, and Lianyungang plays the leading role in those plans. Many important industries will be placed in Lianyungang as part of those plans. Those plans will be formalized and put forward to the State Council for approval, after which the plans will be enacted. Party Secretary Wang emphasized that the city will benefit from Central Government plans to accelerate Lianyungang's economic development, through infrastructure construction funding, and encouragement of innovation and advanced technology. (Note: Lianyungang Foreign Affairs Office (FAO) officials said Wang spent much of December and January in Beijing successfully lobbying the National Development and Reform Commission for inclusion of Lianyungang development projects in stimulus plans released later in 2009/Q1. End note.) SHANGHAI 00000156 003 OF 006 Future Development: Targeted Industries and Infrastructure -------------- -------------- ¶7. (U) The city will promote investment in industries in three major categories in the near-term, Party Secretary Wang said, namely: new materials, new energy and the pharmaceutical sector. While pharmaceuticals, new energy and new materials are the important industrial directions for the city's future economic development, infrastructure development projects are planned as well, Vice Mayor Shi elaborated. For instance, construction will begin before year's end on a new berth in the port that will be able to handle ships of up to 300,000 dwt, and the Central Government will fund harbor dredging and development of additional container terminals. Landfill has already been completed along much of the 6.2 kilometer causeway linking the city to a nearby island, providing improved shelter for the harbor and the platform on which to build those new container terminals. Construction should begin in 2009 on a coastal railroad linking Qingdao (to the north in Shandong Province) through Lianyungang and Nantong on to Shanghai. Another new railroad awaits approval to provide another link between Lianyungang and the Jiangsu provincial capital, Nanjing; the Vice Mayor said that construction of that future line's section between Lianyungang and Huai An was awaiting approval at the time of our March 2-4 visit. New International Airport Also Planned -------------- ¶8. (SBU) Lianyungang has also been selected as the site for a future large international airport, the Vice Mayor and other officials said, with predictions that the new airport would be built and operational by 2016. The airport would serve northern Anhui, northern Jiangsu and southern Shandong Provinces. Party Secretary Wang Jianhua noted that one issue that will require a Beijing decision is whether the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force will also use the planned new airport; the single-runway modest airport currently serving Lianyungang is a dual-use airport. The current airport presently has no scheduled international flights, but will soon add another daily flight to Shanghai. Lianyungang officials acknowledged that a limited number of international flights already serve the provincial capital, Nanjing, but downplayed the likelihood of significant international service expansion there in coming years. They also said the airport at Wuxi, in eastern Jiangsu not far from Shanghai, would grow in importance in the next few years, but do not regard possible growth there as impeding plans for the international airport to be sited in or near Lianyungang. Continuing Urban Development -------------- ¶9. (U) Lianyungang also has ambitious plans for a coastal city development area, 58 square kilometers on the north side of the city, which will use wetlands and reclaimed land to develop new residential, industrial and park areas. That development has already received Central Government approval, Vice Mayor Shi said, and the state-owned enterprise China Communication Construction Corporation (owned by the Ministry of Construction and listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange) and the Jiangsu Provincial Government held a signing ceremony in Beijing on February 20, 2009 about that company's commitment to invest RMB 20 billion in the project. A Lianyungang FAO official separately commented that the urban development plans could SHANGHAI 00000156 004 OF 006 increase Lianyungang urban population in three districts from the current level of 780,000 persons to one million within three years; about 4 million more persons reside in the four neighboring counties that lay within Lianyungang's administrative area. ¶10. (U) Notwithstanding all the planned development, the city aims to preserve scenic beaches and mountain parks within its urban areas. (Indeed, Jiangsu Province's highest point of more than 600 meters is in one of Lianyungang's urban districts.) So the city's future aim is to be a famous coastal city, an important industrial port, and a location famous for sea and mountains, Vice Mayor Shi summarized. New Energy, New Materials - and Old Industries to New Lianyungang Facilities -------------- -------------- -- ¶11. (U) Lianyungang also has become home to a range of companies that manufacture blades, turbines and other parts of wind power windmills, Vice Mayor Shi further explained. Lianyungang's Donghai County is rich in silicon resources, and the city has already built a good foundation for development of materials manufacturing for composites and silicon. Two Chinese pharmaceutical companies listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange have large manufacturing facilities in Lianyungang, Vice Mayor Shi said, and he further noted that their business performance during the economic slowdown has remained almost unaffected, stating that `people still get sick, after all.' Lianyungang is home to a Russian-built commercial nuclear power reactor, which provides the city with steady and reliable electricity supplies. (FAO officials said that Russians remain the largest group of registered long-term foreign residents, even if the current airport terminal has signage in Chinese, English and Korean.) A project with the support of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and investments by CAS, the Jiangsu Provincial Government and the Lianyungang Municipal Government to establish an advanced technology energy and power research center in Lianyungang was launched in 2008. A clean industrial park will be established around the research center, utilizing clean coal technologies with a goal of emitting no carbon. Delegations from BP and General Electric have been to Lianyungang to discuss possible project participation (including a GE Energy delegation from Houston in late February 2009) in R and D and the industrial park. Other officials said foreign company participation in a planned ICGG clean coal power plant is likely. ¶12. (U) Further out chronologically, Shi said, Lianyungang hopes to build a new manmade harbor south of the current natural port area at which to locate petrochemical, oil refinery and steel industries. (Asked whether adding to Chinese steel production capacity makes sense, Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation Bureau Vice Director Liu Mingtai explained that the steel mill could target specialty steels that China does not produce in large quantities or replace energy-inefficient, more highly polluting older and smaller steel mills elsewhere. Liu also pointed to Lianyungang's reliable year-round electricity supply from the nearby nuclear power plant and the ability to move large volumes of iron ore to the planned port and existing and future road and rail links elsewhere to move products.) Plans for this harbor and heavy industrial park of up to 200 square kilometers could be completed this spring, Shi added. Impact of Global Financial Crisis and Responses -------------- - ¶13. (SBU) Despite the evidence confidence of our interlocutors SHANGHAI 00000156 005 OF 006 about much brighter days ahead for the city, some signs of economic slowdown were in clear display. Several incomplete high-rise apartment projects had no workers visible on two consecutive weekdays. While trucks were delivering or picking up containers at the Port of Lianyungang when we toured the waterfront on March 3, there was substantial open space in the terminal area and not a single container ship in sight in the harbor (cf. ref B). A China Shipping-affiliated container factory was idle, with several thousand new containers stacked seven-deep, higher than the factory buildings themselves, spread over several tens of acres. FAO officials informed us that operations at the container factory had ceased several months earlier, and all workers have been put on basic wages (rather than formally laid off) to maintain social stability during the downturn in trade. ¶14. (SBU) Employment - especially, coping with factory layoffs - remains the top priority for the municipal government. Party Secretary Wang Jianhua said one hundred thousand migrant workers hailing from Lianyungang had returned before the Chinese New Year period, many of them having lost jobs elsewhere in the autumn and winter. What had been a trickle of unemployed returnees as early as September and October became a torrent in the last several weeks leading up to late January's Chinese New Year. Lianyungang's rapid economic development in 2008 had created 60,000 job openings, Wang said, and he emphasized that Lianyungang enterprises are now encouraged not to layoff any workers and further encouraged to find work for unemployed returned Lianyungang laborers. Lianyungang Foreign Affairs Office Director General Li Ya said that local government is providing free training to unemployed returnees to broaden their basic work skills and also assisting in local job placements. Lianyungang Economic and Technological Development Zone Vice Director Wang Qiang averred that unemployed returnees also include some skilled workers whose talents will prove to be a great asset for the city's future development. ¶15. (U) Small and Medium Enterprise Bureau Director General Li Jianxing presented a quick synopsis of developments in specific industrial sectors and made a case for Lianyungang's imminent recovery in many of them. Speaking on March 4, Li said investment had begun to pick up earlier in the first quarter of 2009, leading to signs of recovery in the city's manufacturing sector. Sector by sector, Li said Lianyungang sees that: --The pharmaceuticals sector continues to perform strongly; mechanical and electrical equipment manufacturers almost unaffected. --The textile industry was the worst hit sector in 2008, suffering from declining orders and higher labor costs. In early 2009, however, new orders have increased slightly as exporters are switching their target markets from the United States and Europe to emerging markets. --Eighty percent of the mineral crystal companies in Lianyungang's Donghai County had closed by year-end 2008 due to weak external demand. (The multicolored rocks are used for low-end bracelets and trinkets.) In 2009, a few companies have already resumed production, but demand remains weak. Mr. Li believed it would take at least until June of this year for most of the crystal companies to fully resume production; and surely some of the smaller players in this industry will ultimately stay closed or merge with bigger players. --Lianyungang's food and beverage industry mainly exports to SHANGHAI 00000156 006 OF 006 Japan, followed by South Korea. Despite increased raw material prices in 2008, sales prices declined, dampening companies' profitability. Lianyungang firms lost many export orders to Japan due to the `poisoned dumpling scandal' in 2008. Lianyungang's food companies did not participate in a food product exhibition in Japan in 2008. The city and companies are intent on participating in exhibitions in Japan in 2009 to rebuild sales in that important export market. --As of early March, Lianyungang's plywood industry was running at thirty percent of its production capacity. Li said local plywood companies principally blamed renminbi appreciation against the dollar for a deterioration in their competitiveness. --Eighty percent of chemical products manufacturers in the Lianyungang area closed for periods longer than the required seven-day shutdown at the Chinese New Year (late January in 2009),Li said, reflecting their lower business volumes. Some companies in this sector had accumulated raw materials when oil prices peaked in 2008, concerned that prices may have been headed even higher. These companies do not feel much incentive to sell to date unless selling prices allow them to recover their input costs. High inventory ratios will cause cash flow problems in these companies. Chinese banks have not been eager to lend to such companies which in retrospect are seen to have demonstrated such poor business judgment. --Metals and minerals companies in the Lianyungang area face some of the same problems as chemical products manufacturers. Some companies purchased raw materials when commodity prices were at their peak in 2008. The 2008/Q4 freefall in global commodity prices seriously hurt these companies' profitability. Li asserted that nonetheless, as a whole, these companies will be more resilient in the economic downturn than some other industries. --Auto and auto components companies in the Lianyungang area saw negative sales growth last year; while the new auto industry revitalization plan has helped to registered modest positive growth year to date. --Local shipbuilding companies are still completing orders placed in 2008 or earlier, but have not received new orders recently. Therefore, local shipbuilding industry worries about their business situation in 2010 are beginning to rise. Comment -------------- ¶16. (U) Lianyungang officials hold ambitious development plans, and appear to be adroitly moving to secure stimulus plan funding while matching those plans to Central Government initiatives to facilitate interior development and development of innovative and advanced technologies. A sustained global economic downturn would likely call into question the development timelines envisioned by these officials, as a principal component of the local and regional economy, the Port of Lianyungang, has suffered a serious downturn in throughput. CAMP