Every Monday through Wednesday, local government conferences are suspended in Meishan, a city in Sichuan province. (May is also decreed as "the month without official conferences" in Meishan.) Instead the government uses the bureaucratic down time to service companies and attract potential investors.

Meishan is perhaps best known as the hometown of Su Dongpo, a famous Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127) poet. It is also nicknamed "the youngest city in Sichuan province", as it only received city-level status in 2000 after separating from Leshan city in 1997.

Located between the capital Chengdu and the province's industrial base Leshan, Meishan has also experienced embarrassment for years as the less competitive underdog of the two cities.

"Years ago, a businessman expressed interest in investing in Meishan and decided to take a look for himself. Yet, just after visiting the Su Dongpo memorial temple, he left for Leshan and never returned," Li Li, an official with Meishan municipal bureau of commerce, tells China Business Weekly.

As a mark of the city's history, Meishan still shares Leshan's long-distance code, but is slowly building a distinct new reputation as an attractive place for foreign investment and industry. In 2007, foreign capital in the city was about $106 million, a 476 percent year-on-year increase. Morgan Stanley, Citi and leading chemical company BASF have all invested in this city.

In 2008, the local government approved the transfer of industry from Chengdu. In February, Pengshan county, just 60 km away from Chengdu, signed regional cooperation contracts with nearby Xinjin county. According to the plan, the new development will be focused on chemical plants, machinery processing and mechatronics.

"Now, the area is no longer an economic embarrassment," says Fan Jihong, head of Pengshan county. "Many companies in our economic development zone are coming from Chengdu. With transferred industry, Pengshan has received great partners for development and attracted more foreign investment."

Besides Chengdu, Meishan is also working to lure transferred industry from some coastal cities. The city has set up seven investment promotion bureaus in Guangdong, Fujian, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Chongqing.

In the entrance of Chengdu to Leshan highway, the most eye-catching billboard speaks to the new transformation. Once welcoming travelers to the birthplace of Su Dongpo, it now boasts of being an "international commodity town".

But a slogan can just be empty talk if the local government doesn't walk the talk. Meishan is also a traffic hub in southwest China, but that didn't benefit the local economy until a change was made in 2006.

On a conference held in March 2006, on developing a non State-owned economy, a private entrepreneur Huang Conggang complained, "I established my business in Guangdong and decided to transfer the business to Meishan. Finally, a truck filled with equipment was on the way to my hometown. Everything was shaping up before the truck entered Meishan. But just at the entrance to the highway, I was stopped and received fines without any rhyme or reason."

Huang's case aroused the attention of the local government. The investigation found that many local companies were suffering from random fines. Much worse, a businessman, who originally planned to invest 150 million yuan in Meishan, finally left in anger because his car was fined unreasonably several times during the investigation.

"The sticking points regarding the random fines came from hundreds of part-time traffic enforcement assistants," the city's Party Secretary Jiang Renfu, said after the investigation. Without hesitation, the local government began refining the system and by the end of 2006, the amount of traffic fines decreased 77.57 percent over the last year.

Besides the reforming the traffic fine system, the local government began attracting investors with promises of efficient and effective service. The "conference-free three day" policy was begun in October 2005 to devote more time to businesses and the length of official conferences other days was also limited in one hour.

Now the procedure for administrative permission can be finished within 20 minutes, while the waiting period lasted as long as 20 days before.

With years of development, Meishan, a city once only had a bicycle factory, now has eight pillar industries: aluminum, silicon, chemistry, Glauber's salt, machining, construction materials, food manufacturing and bamboo artwork.

While developing businesses, the local government also pays attention to environmental protection. According to statistics from the State Forestry Administration, the forest coverage in Meishan is about 34.56 percent in 2008, up 6 percentage points from a year earlier.

"In Meishan, the outdated technologies, the environment-polluting projects and related industries are not welcomed," says Song Ming, the city's deputy mayor. In fact, Meishan has been taught hard lessons about developing businesses without taking environmental care.

Meishan is rich in Glauber's salt, and one use for it is to make washing powder. Many small workshops in Meishan were in the business. But it's also resource consuming and a highly polluting industry and vicious competition saw the small companies closing as fast as they opened in the area.

The phenomenon led the local government to consider how to develop more stable, continuous economy. In 2007, a Hong Kong-based company, with world-class advanced equipment, got the approval to invest $90 million in the Glauber's salt industry.

The new factory went into trial production in June of 2008 and the annual output may reach 1 million tons, equivalent to one-third of the total output of the country.

In 2007, the city's GDP was about 34.75 billion yuan, while was 28 billion yuan in 2006. While Meishan was quickening its development pace, the May 12 killer earthquake shook the province but didn't affect the passion of investors.

On June 6, Sichuan held the province's first post-quake project conference in Chengdu. Lu Jianwei, head of Meishan investment promotion bureau, says: "Due to the conference, about 20 new projects have committed to Meishan, with the total investment amount reaching 4.52 billion yuan. Many companies have signed contracts in advance in support of the reconstruction of Sichuan province."

Due to the disaster, 350 companies in Meishan stopped operation. As of May 30, 331 had resumed production, according to Luo Rui, director with Meishan municipal bureau of commerce.

Yin Jiansong, a manger with Wal-mart, says: "Our business has run well in Sichuan province for the past two years. The earthquake won't affect our investment plan in this province. Wal-mart will soon open new shops in Meishan and investigate the second- and third-tier cities of Sichuan province. We have confidence on the province's long-term development."

(China Daily 07/14/2008 page10)