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Taiyuan City |
外文名称: Taiyuan City
As the capital city of China's Shanxi
Province, Taiyuan was formerly known as Jinyang, which was initially
built in 497 B.C.
With a history of 2,500 years, Taiyuan has
always been an ancient cultural city and commercial metropolis in North
China. In 1927, it was transformed into a city. Today, it is a major
industrial city in North China, taking a strategic geographical
location in the general layout of China's economic structure, which
forms a connecting link between the east and west as well as joins the
north with the south. It has a total area of 6,988 sq km, with the
boundaries totaling 560 km in the full length. Its urban
areas total 170 sq km. In 1995, it had a permanent residential
population of 2.8277 million, including an urban residential population
of 2.1356 million. Now it has under its jurisdiction three urban
districts, five suburban counties and one town.
Rich Natural Resources: The province of
Shanxi has always been known as the "sea of coal," and Taiyuan is right
located at the heart of this "sea of coal." The surface area of coal
containing earth is measured at 1,282 sq km, accounting for one-fifth
of the total area of the city. Of the proven deposits of coal, about
50% are gas coal, bituminous coal, coking coal and lean coal, which are
superior types of coal for coking, and 43.6% is meager coal. The
resources of metals and other minerals in Taiyuan include iron and
bauxite, ferro manganese, copper, lead and zinc. The proven iron
deposits in Taiyuan are 666.445 million tons while the known deposits
of bauxite are the largest discovered in China. Non-metallic minerals
include gypsum, sulfur, nitre and refractory clay.
Taiyuan is an ancient cultural city with
a long history, and a host of cultural and historical sites. The famous
Jin Memorial Temple Area in Taiyuan is a major cultural and historical
site under State protection. The Hall of Goddess, the Bridge over the
Fish Pond and the Hall of Presentation have always been honored as
"national treasures." In addition, Taiyuan has a number of other
cultural and historical sites that are well-known across the world,
including the Longshan Grottoes, which are the only Taoist grottoes in
China, the Tianlongshan Buddhist Caves and the Chongshan Temple which
has collections of scriptures published in the Song Dynasty (960-1279),
the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).
Economic Strengths: Taiyuan is the
political, economic, cultural, transportation and information center of
Shanxi Province and is also a central city or base of energy,
heavy and chemical industries in China. In July of 1991, it was
approved by the State Council as an inland city open to overseas
investment. It has established an industrial structure with a full
range of sectors comprising the four pillar industries, namely, coal,
metallurgy, machinery and chemicals, as well as a series of subsidiary
industries, including the power, textiles, the light industry, building
materials, precision instruments and meters. The metallurgical industry
of Taiyuan turns out more than 5,300 types of products, including
competitive products of special steel such as stainless steel, silicon
steel and bearing steel. Taiyuan exports large quantities of aluminum
ingots annually. The coal industry of Taiyuan has formed a development
model in which large State-owned coal mines play a major role and local
and township coal mines play a supplementary role. The Taiyuan-based
Xishan Minerals Bureau --
China's extra-large State-run
enterprise producing superior quality power coal and coking coal -- is
becoming the largest modern coking coal production base in China. The
power industry of Taiyuan has also developed rapidly. By the year 2000,
the total generating capacity of Taiyuan will have reached 2 million kw
or more. The chemical industry is capable of turning out 15 of the 17
major categories of chemical products, and has formed a system with a
complete range of sectors and a considerable scale. With a history of
more than 100 years, the machinery industry mainly manufactures
products of metallurgical, lifting and mining machinery equipment, as
well as machine tools, electrical equipment and meters and instruments.
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Taiyuan has a total of 2,073 industrial
enterprises above the township level, including 107 large- and
medium-sized enterprises. The most famous ones include the Taiyuan Iron
and Steel (Group) Company, Taiyuan Heavy Machinery Works, Taiyuan
Mining Machinery Works and Taiyuan Chemical Industry (Group) Company.
These extra-large enterprises all have production of scale and superior
equipment and technology. As they are highly extensible and accessory
to one another, they are creating material conditions for Sino-foreign
joint development of industrial products.
Transportation and Telecommunications
Facilities: Taiyuan has the first-class cargo and passenger railway
stations in China. Its trunk railway lines, which are mostly
electrified, link the city to more than 20 large- and medium-size
cities across China. Taiyuan has direct railway lines leading to
Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and Xi'an, as well as a number of other big
cities. Taiyuan is a major transport hub in North China and is also a
base for airlines of China. The city has opened 43 domestic and
international air routes, with regular flights to Beijing, Shanghai,
Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hong Kong and other destinations on a weekly
basis. There is a direct air route from Taiyuan to Hong Kong, where
travelers can proceed to all parts of the world. Taiyuan has a highway
system that radiates from the city proper to all corners. In addition
to a major highway running through Shanxi province including Taiyuan
from the north to the south, there are eight other highways that also
run through Taiyuan and lead to other provinces. It takes only six
hours to travel by car from Taiyuan to Beijing via the Tai-Jiu
Expressway. Taiyuan ranks among the top Chinese cities of similar sizes
in terms of available telecommunications services. The installed
capacity of the telephone switchboards in Taiyuan had reached 310,000
lines by the end of 1995. Approximately 20% of the local residents have
telephone sets. The mobile phone Service in the city has been
expanded to include 540 signal channels. Taiyuan has already
established a modern network of mail transportation, and has introduced
multiform post services including domestic and international express
mail delivery. The supply of coal, electricity, gas and water has been
reliably guaranteed, with 88.4% of the local residents using liquefied
petroleum gas. The city has basically met the target of central heating
supply.
Progress in Scientific
Technological Development and Education: Taiyuan, with the
approval of the State, has opened a national-level high and new
technology industrial development zone with a total area of 20 sq km. A
total of 331 enterprises have opened ventures in the zone, which
produce more than 400 types of high-tech products. Investors from
dozens of countries and regions, including the United States, Japan,
Germany, Hong Kong and Taiwan, have invested in establishing
ventures in the zone. Those ventures in the zone all enjoy preferential
treatment offered by the State. Along with continued expansion of the
scope for foreign investment, Taiyuan has also opened a provincial
level economic and technological development zone, which is primarily
intended to develop export-oriented industries, commerce and trade, as
well as real estate business.
In accordance with different
orientations of investment, the development zone has been divided into
eight sub-zones for the food-processing industry, pharmaceutical
industry, electronic industry, mechanical and electrical equipment
industry, light industry, packaging industry, fine chemical industry,
farm products and sideline products processing industry and storage.
With a powerful force of scientific and technological personnel as well
as relatively a developed education sector, Taiyuan has 115 research
institutions with a total workforce of 12,900. Universities and
colleges in Taiyuan have a full range of specialties. The city has a
large number of secondary technical schools while the nine-year
compulsory education has been made universal.
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