OREANDA-NEWS. March 13, 2012. Bengbu, a traditional industrial hub in East China's Anhui province, aims to transform itself into an electronics industry base through self-innovation and attracting more high-tech manufacturers, said Chen Qitao, the city's Party secretary.As an old industrial city, Bengbu has solid foundations in traditional industries such as agricultural processing, pharmaceuticals and textiles.

But the city also plans to boost strategic emerging industries and give the electronics industry an opportunity to develop, said Chen, also a deputy to the National People's Congress.

The city is rich in quartz sand, a raw material for the glass components of many high-tech electronic devices,

Bengbu has already attracted investment from solar battery, phone, television and computer screen manufacturers, he said.

"We hope more glass makers and their upstream and downstream enterprises could invest in Bengbu and fully take advantage of the city's natural and human resources to lower production costs and improve competitiveness," said Chen.

Bengbu is home to a batch of State- and provincial-level industrial parks that have a good investment environment and the government provides many favorable land and taxation policies for high-tech enterprises, he said.

Secondary industry accounts for 45 percent of the city's GDP.

The output of strategic emerging industries such as electronics, new energy and new materials stood at around 30 billion yuan (USD 4.7 billion) last year and the city wants this figure to grow to 200 billion yuan by the end of 2015, he said.

"We are negotiating with some Fortune 500 companies from Japan and Taiwan about investment in Bengbu and we hope more famous overseas and Chinese-invested companies could see Bengbu as a good opportunity for cooperation and development," he said.

Chen noted that the city has many key high-tech research institutions and universities, and the city has also set up a fund to help transfer the fruits of scientific research into production.

Chen added that the Beijing-Shanghai bullet train that started running last year and the Beijing-Fuzhou high-speed railway line that is to be put into use in the latter half of this year would greatly facilitate the city's development.