OREANDA-NEWS. September 27, 2011. The Central China Expo, being held in Taiyuan, Shanxi province, is a major economic and trade event that serves six provinces in helping them open up to the rest of the world and increase cooperation at both the regional international level.

This is the sixth time for the Central China Expo, formally known as the Central China Investment and Trade Exposition, which runs Sept 26 to Sept 28.

It has previously been hosted by Changsha, capital of Hunan province; Zhengzhou, Henan province; Wuhan, Hubei province; Hefei, in Anhui province; and Nanchang, Jiangxi province.

This year's event is being sponsored by the Shanxi commerce department, Taiyuan municipal government, and the Ministry of Commerce's Investment Promotion Agency.

The expo is considered a measure of the central government's success in reaching its goal of "raising" Central China".

The six provinces have a combined population of 361 million and cover a 1.03-million-square-kilometer area. The region provides a connection between the western and eastern parts of the country well as the North and South.

It has plenty of natural, cultural and tourist resources, and is fairly strong in scientific research and industrial development.

It is also one of the major agricultural producers, as well as a supplier of energy and raw materials.

The first expo was held in 2006. Altogether, the five expos have brought 287,000 foreign business people together, and have brought in USD 42.6 billion worth of foreign investment. It has also seen USD 4.74 billion worth of contracts signed, proving that it is the grandest and most influential fair in the region.

Organizers say they want to contribute to the national drive to build the region into an area with three bases and one hub - a grain production base, energy base, modern equipment and high technology base, and a transport hub.

To help the government reach that goal, this year's expo will concern itself with new energy, new materials, advanced technology, equipment manufacturing, environmental protection, modern agriculture, and tourism. Its themes are "Transforming the economy" and "Central China on the rise", with the focus primarily on project promotions, investment, and strategic discussions.

Three features of this expo are worth noting: the low carbon activities, the pilot programs for resource preservation development, and the attractive investment prospects.

Some of such activities are as follows:

The Mayors' Forum on Sustainable Development which will draw in mayors of major cities and heads of multinationals for a dialogue on sustainable development.

The Financial Forum on the Central China Development, which will cover ways to utilize international capital and benefiting from an international economic recovery.

The Global Trade Fairs, Forum on Trade with Taiwan, and the Forum on Central China under a Multilateral Trade System. These will all try to increase the region's trade and improve its trade position.

The Central Tourism Cooperation Forum is intended to find ways to coordinate use of tourist resources in the six provinces to steer the economy in the direction of more environmentally friendly development.

The Forum on Reform and Development of State-owned Enterprises, and Forum on Urban Intelligence both represent an effort to push the reforms and improve the quality of economic development.

The five previous expos have left a great legacy for their respective hosts and have left some big shoes to fill.

But, Shanxi has a lot to offer with its resources, long history, and culture. It dates as far back as 2,000 years and was known as Jin during the Warring States period. It covers a 156,000-square-kilometer area and has 35 million people.

About 80 percent of the province is hilly or mountainous and contains large coal reserves, about 207 billion tons in all, or a third of the nation's total. It also ranks among the top 10 Chinese provinces in mineral reserves.

The Yellow and Fen rivers run through it so it has abundant water resources. The gross number annually amounts to 9.83 billion cubic meters, 36 percent of that exploitable. It has more than 700 reservoirs, with a total capacity of 405 billion cubic meters.

Shanxi's cultural heritage helps its tourist industry, thanks to the fact that much of the architecture of the Song, Liao and Jin dynasties is found here. The most attractive sites are the old city of Pingyao, the Yungang Grottoes, and Mount Wutai, all of them on the World Cultural Heritage list.

Shanxi had some great economic progress during the 11th Five Year Plan (2006-2010), with its agriculture, manufacturing, and service industries showing robust growth.

Yuan Qingquan, Shanxi's Party secretary, said they have focused more on sustainable development, cutting the number of coal mines from 2,600 to 1,053, as a way to remove the shoddy work of the older coal mines and replace it with more technologically advanced, large-scale techniques.

In 2010, the province's GDP was 908.8 billion yuan (USD 142.2 billion), a year-on-year increase of 13.9 percent, despite the global economic slowdown.

Shanxi is also fairly well equipped with infrastructure, with 120,000 kilometers of highways and 3,071 kilometers of railways. The express railway means that Taiyuan is less than two hours from Beijing. It also has direct flights to 40 Chinese cities.

Shanxi has plenty of business opportunities and this modernized, yet historical, province will be a good host for business people from all over. And, this year's expo, continuing the momentum of the previous expos, is a promising place to start putting economic development on a more sustainable path while increasing trade and investment.

The fair is backed by China's State Council and is sponsored by the following: the Ministry of Commerce; State Administration of Taxation; State Administration of Industry and Commerce; State Administration of Radio, Film and Television; National Tourism Administration; Council for the Promotion of International Trade; the Federation of Industry and Commerce; Federation of Industrial Economics; and, of course, the governments of Shanxi, Anhui, Jiangxi, Henan, Hubei and Hunan provinces.