THE rapid development of the Xijiang River, the western tributary of the Pearl River, is prompting transfer of manufacturing in search of affordable labour away from coastal regions.
Recently, 16 ceramic manufacturers have moved their factories to the industrial park at Wuzhou, a city in southwestern China's Guangxi Autonomous Region, Xinhua reports. There have been 87 production lines that moved to Wuzhou from Pearl River Delta manufacturing city Foshan.
China is making greater investment on Xijiang and has spent CNY16 billion (US$2.57 billion) on river development in the past four years on series of projects such as the 2,000-tonne navigational channel from Guigang to Wuzhou. Capacity of ports on the river has topped 90 million tonnes. Their throughput reached 94.97 million tonnes. Cargo traffic on the river has increased to 150 million tonnes.
In 2008, Guangxi publicised a plan on further development of the river that aims to invest CNY21.5 billion on infrastructures to raise the port capacity to 106 million tonnes and turn Xijiang into an important artery connecting Beibu Gulf region and Pearl River Delta.
Last year, GDP of the seven cities along Xijiang river increased 11.7 per cent year on year, their economic aggregate is taking up 60 per cent of Guangxi's total.