A package of 52 major industrial projects, totaling 30 billion yuan in investment, was on Wenzhou government's plan for this year. The work was distributed among officials, who took clear responsibility for the coordination, supervision and progression of each project.

Companies in Wenzhou were encouraged by the government to achieve competitiveness through mergers, or by improving product mix and upgrading technologies. As a result, the city's many makers of synthetic leather, used for making shoes, garments or carpets, joined forces to form four group companies. Other companies like General Protecht Group, an export-oriented supplier of special electrical products such as GFCI (Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter), extended business undertakings to the upper part of the LED supply chain, with a projected annual output of 720 million yuan. Huazheng Plastics made inroads into the sector of Li-ion cells and electric motorbikes. And Zhejiang Universe Filter, a subsidiary of Hsoar Group, obtained production licenses from Chrysler and GM to deliver filters to the two US companies as a Tier 1 Supplier.

Huayi Electrical Apparatus Group, a rapidly growing player of wind energy, delivered its first 1.5 MW wind turbine in July 2008.The product promised a 170 percent growth for the company in output value this year. Huayi was encouraged and supported by the government, which had planned to build up the region into the country's third largest wind equipment manufacturing base. In the annual Government Work Report released in February, the city also expressed the wish to become an important manufacturing base for solar energy.

In the second half of 2008 the city government resolved to build a coastal industrial belt by claiming land from the sea. The move was considered a solution to the scarcity of land available for further development. According to the plan, the offshore area will yield 8000 mu (about 533 hectares) of low land this year for developing industries. Around 30 enterprises had expressed intention of entering. Their business lines included electrical appliances and solar energy equipment.

Economic indices for the first three months showed signs of recovery. Total retail sales of consumer goods climbed 14.2 percent on the same period of 2008. Sales of motor vehicles, as indicated by applications for license plates, went up nearly 30 percent. Comparing with the last quarter of 2008, trading on new and used housing surged 214 percent and 128 percent. In January-March period, the financial sector reported a 31.3 percent year-on-year growth in balance of deposits and 31.2 percent in balance of lending. The industrial use of electricity rose 77.2 percent in March, against that of February. The use of electricity by manufacturing enterprises increased 33 percent. The city's total industrial output still reported a negative growth in the first quarter. But the rate of decrease was falling.

A survey conducted by the government's Development and Reform Commission -- of 100 enterprises averaging a yearly output of 600 million yuan -- found 77 percent of the companies had orders equaling those of a year before or more, 65 percent made the same amounts of profits or more, and 80 percent had the same numbers of employees or more.

Nearly 88 percent of the respondents said operations in the coming quarter would be as usual or better. And 65 percent expressed the intention of investing in the following six months.

"Difficulty is never distributed evenly," the city's Party chief Shao Zhanwei said April 18 at a media event, "On the whole, the global market is going down. But it is still enormous (and full of opportunities) to a specific company. If you dare to try it and have confidence, you'll rake in more orders than the other guy."

"The current crisis might not have reached its bottom yet. But the enterprising private businesses here believe they can get out of it as early as possible," Shao said.

(Xinhua News Agency May 3, 2009)