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DALIAN, LIAONING Province: A Singapore trade delegation visiting China's Dalian has expressed interest in investing in the city's transportation and logistics, as well as its proposed cruise centre and a new cargo terminal.
The Chinese northeastern city may have made a name for itself for heavy, marine and shipbuilding industries, but it has set its sights further.
Dalian calls itself the gateway to northeast China. And perhaps rightly so, since it handles over 90 per cent of export cargoes for Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang and Inner Mongolia.
While playing host to the visiting Singapore trade team, led by Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam, the city reveals it is gearing up for yet another role.
It hopes to be the economic hub for Northeast Asia, once China forges a free trade agreement with neighbouring Korea and Japan.
Yi Qingtao, Dalian Changxing Island Harbor Industries Zone's vice director-general, said: "Once the Chinese government comes up with the policy involving Japan and Korea, it will have to select a location that is not too far from these two countries.
"And in the north, we'd be the best candidate. Moreover, other factors such as the level of economic development and external trades and relations will also have to be taken into account."
Even though the China-Korea-Japan FTA is not expected to be reached in the next few years, Dalian said this simply means that the city has more time to lay the foundations.
This vision of growth is certainly a far cry from what the region used to be.
During the 1950s and 60s, Northeast China was home to China's industrial base and even the pillar of the country's economic growth. But years of economic mismanagement has turned the region's infrastructure obsolete and backward, and caused massive unemployment in the region, especially during the 1980s and 90s. - CNA/ir
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