I. Overview of Heze
1. Geographical Location
Located in the southwest of Shandong Province (114°48'-116°24' E, 34°39'-35°52' N), and bounded by Jiangsu, Henan and Anhui，Heze City is historically known as “Middle of the World”.
2. Administrative Division
Heze City has a total area of 12,239 square kilometers with a population of 9.05 million. There are eight counties (Caoxian, Dingtao, Chengwu, Shanxian, Juye, Yuncheng, Juancheng and Dongming), one district (Mudan District) and ten provincial economic development zones.
3. Climate
Located in the warm temperate zone, Heze City has a continental monsoon climate, with sufficient sunlight and distinct seasons. The number of the frost-free days is around 220; the annual average temperature is 13.5℃-14℃; the annual precipitation is 697 millimeters; the annual average humidity is over 60 percent; the sunshine duration is 2,582 hours.
4. Natural Resources
Heze, located on the Yellow River Alluvial Plain, is a high-quality grain, cotton, forestry and livestock production base well known in the country, the largest forest product production, processing and export base of the plain areas in the country, and a cattle and sheep export base established by the state. The Luxi cattle, grey goat and small tail Han sheep are called the three national treasures. The coal reserves in Heze City are 28.1 billion tons and Juye Coal Field under construction is the largest coal field in East China; the proved reserves of petroleum and natural gas are 56.25 million tons and 27.3 billion cubic meters respectively. Now Heze has become an important production base of Zhongyuan Oilfield.
5. History and Culture
Heze has a long history and rich culture. The city became the economic and cultural center of the Central Plain areas several times. It was the place where most of the activities of Yao, Shun and Yu, three famous tribal leaders of ancient China, took place, and the birthplace of military strategist Sun Bin, thinker Zhuang Zhou and other sages. In Heze, Fan Li, “the earliest ancestor of the business circles”, operated his business, Liu Bang ascended the throne, Cao Cao achieved supremacy and Song Jiang gathered his friends.
1. Traffic
Heze has a well-developed highway transportation network. Now Rizhao-Dongming, Jinan-Heze, Heze-Zhengzhou and Heze-Shangqiu expressways have been completed and opened to traffic, and Heze-Dezhou, Dongming-Xinxiang and Heze-Zaozhuang expressways are being planned and constructed. A road traffic hub in the shape of “米” will be formed soon. It can extend to connect Beijing-Fuzhou, Beijing-Shanghai, Jinan-Qingdao and Xuzhou-Xi’an expressways and further extend to the entire East China, North China, South China and the central and western regions of China. No.220, No.327, No.105, No.106 and other national highways, 12 provincial highways and county- and township-level highways 6,638 kilometers long form a highway transportation network with expressways, national highways, provincial highways and local highways connected with each other, integrating the urban areas with the rural areas.
Heze is located at the intersection of the two major rail lines of Beijing-Kowloon Railway and Rizhao-Heze Railway (the eastern section of the new Asia-Europe continental bridge) that connect the harbor in the east, Europe in the west, Hong Kong and Macao in the south, and Beijing and Tianjin in the north. In Heze, there are three municipal-level railway stations, eight county-level railway stations and 12 special railway lines. The largest railway station is located at the heart of Heze Economic Development Zone.
Heze is 70 kilometers from Qufu Airport, 2.5 hours’ drive from Jinan Yaoqiang International Airport and less than two hours’ drive from Zhengzhou Xinzheng International Airport.
2. Communications
The communications system of Heze City is mainly optical cable. Now a broadband network covers all corners of the city, and all county-level stations of the multimedia communications network have been completed. All urban and rural areas of Heze City have realized programmable communications control, and the total installed capacity of telephones is more than 2 million households and there are over 1.8 million mobiles.
3. Water and Electricity
The water, electricity and heat supply as well as their backup capacities of Heze City are sufficient. The total installed capacity of power generators of the city is more than 1,600 MW. The total amount of usable groundwater resources is 3.94 billion cubic meters. The Yellow River runs 185 kilometers in Heze, and the water inflow is 25.6 billion cubic meters. In addition, there are five major water systems: Zhuzhao New River, Wanfu River, Dongyu River, Taihang Embankment River and the ancient course of the Yellow River.
4. Port
Heze Port is a second-class inland port approved by the provincial government with special railway lines, customs supervision warehouses, international container stack grounds and other facilities. The port can undertake the full circle of import and export cargo freight business. Now the Heze Bonded Logistics Center is being planned and designed.
III. Heze’s Economy
1. Economic and Social Development
In 2009, the gross domastic product of Heze City was 95.3 billion yuan, the local fiscal revenue was 6.06 billion yuan and the per capita disposable income of urban residents was 12，737 yuan. The proportion of the primary industry, the secondary industry and the tertiary industry was 21.8:51.6:26.6, and an industrial system with energy, chemical engineering, food, forest, textile and machinery industries as the pillars and 38 sectors as the mainstay was initially formed. A number of national and provincial key enterprises have emerged. There are more than 3,000 kinds of main products, including petrochemical products, pharmaceutical intermediates, rubber accelerators, furniture, artificial boards, clothes, transformers, bearings, tires, arts and crafts.
The city has four colleges, 83 secondary vocational schools and 104,561 students; there are 305 health institutions of different types and 20,292 health technical personnel; there are 10 hotels of three stars or above with a reception capacity of more than 2,500 people.
2. Foreign Trade
At present, more than 140 countries and regions have established trade relations with Heze City. South Korea, Japan and EU are the main trade partners. In 2009, the total volume of exports and imports of the city was $1.25799 billion, including $870.5 million in exports and $387.49 million in imports.
3. Foreign Investment
Up till 2009, more than 20 countries and regions had invested in Heze City; 660 projects with foreign investment had been approved; the contractual foreign capital was $1.8 billion and the foreign capital actually used was $740 million.
4. Foreign Economic Cooperation
In 2009, 2,235 people of the city went to work outside China, mainly in over 30 countries and regions such as Russia, Germany, South Korea， Japan， Singapore and East Asia. Mudan District, Caoxian County and Juancheng County are the bases of labor service export in Shandong Province. The local government has approved a total of
IV. Investment Guide
The key industrial development goal of Heze City is four bases and one major industry, namely, coal-power-chemical base, petrochemical base, agricultural products & by-products manufacturing and processing base, trade logistics base and cultural tourism industry. The industrial development priorities of Heze are energy, chemical engineering, forest, food, textile, and machinery industries.
Energy industry: Focus on the development and construction of Juye and Shanxian coal fields and introduce the integrated project of coal power, coal chemicals and coal construction to build Heze City into the largest coal-power-chemical base of the province.
Chemical industry: Based on the advantages of coal, petroleum and natural gas resources, improve the scientific and technological contents of coal chemical, petrochemical and natural gas chemical products and extend the industrial chain; speed up the development of the pharmaceutical enterprises of pharmaceutical intermediates, Chinese traditional patent medicine and health products; upgrade the organic chemical products such as rubber antioxidants and accelerants and increase their scientific and technological contents.
Forest industry: Optimize the forest industry structure; focus on the construction of a number of high-tech and large-scale deep processing projects; lay emphasis on the introduction of projects related to high-grade panels, high-grade furniture, arts and crafts, woodworking machinery, etc.
Food industry: Through the application of high-tech and modern means such as bio-engineering, enhance the development of food industry, increase the depth of processing, and focus on the introduction of deep processing projects of fruits and vegetables, dairy products, meat products and health care products.
Textile industry: Build the medium and high-grade high-quality cotton production bases; focus on the development of industry clothes and decorative textiles; improve the proportion of high-grade fabrics such as shuttleless weaving products; actively introduce end textile products such as clothes and bedding; gradually extend the industrial development chain.
Machinery industry: Focus on the development of transformers, oil pumps & nozzle tips, copper-belts, bearings, steel balls, continuous nickel foams and electronic accessories as well as other competitive products, and actively promote their extension to upstream and downstream products.
