With its good business environment, well-developed services and quality educational and medical resources, Siming district in Xiamen, Fujian province, is attracting an increasing number of global enterprises and playing a vital role supporting regional economic development.

Over the past 40 years, East China's Xiamen has grown into a charming, modern and innovative city. This year, it celebrated its 20th anniversary hosting the China International Fair for Investment and Trade, one of the region's most significant annual trade promotion events.

Statistics from the local government show that Siming's GDP reached 132.19 billion yuan ($19.08 billion) in 2017, a 7.8 percent year-on-year increase. It accounted for 30.38 percent of Xiamen's GDP and ranked top among all the city's districts.

Siming is expected to make more breakthroughs in 2018.

From January to August, the amount of contracted foreign investment in the district reached 10.83 billion yuan and actual use of foreign capital reached 1.38 billion yuan. Both of these figures were higher than projected.

In the meantime, Siming has attracted 33 foreign investment projects worth more than 30 million yuan each and 92 national projects worth 100 million yuan each, including the headquarters of car rental company Ucar Inc and coffee shop chain Luckin Coffee.

During the 2018 China International Fair for Investment and Trade in Xiamen last month, Siming district signed 36 projects with an overall investment of 27.35 billion yuan. Foreign investment in the district reached $750 million, ranking it top among all the city's districts.

The investors include Thailand-based Charoen Pokphand Group, which plans to set up a China headquarters in Siming district, and subsidiaries of commercial giant Suning Holdings Group and the China Pacific Construction Group, which are also planning to launch businesses in the area.

Other projects signed at CIFIT are set to promote the development of the financial, film and television, medicine and sports sectors.

Xiamen attaches great importance to building industrial clusters that create a good business environment for industrial development. The sports sector is one of Xiamen's, and Siming's, most important.

Anta Sports Products moved to Siming district six years ago and has grown into a world-class brand that provides sports equipment and apparel to global markets. A member of the company's management applauded the district for having "international horizons".

Last year, Anta's revenue reached 16.69 billion yuan, a record high, according to the company.

Li Ling, vice-president of Anta, said Xiamen provides a friendly and open business environment, which helps the company to attract international professionals and access valuable global resources.

This year, Anta acquired children's brand Kingkow, which also settled in Siming district. Li said that local officials provided strong support for the move.

All processes were convenient and governmental departments provided good services, enabling the company to focus on developing products, Li added.

From its headquarters in Siming, Anta has expanded its business to Southeast Asia, Russia, Central Asia, West Asia and the Americas. The company has a market value of $12.5 billion and is seeking acquisitions of well-established global brands. Its goal is for total sales revenue to exceed 100 billion yuan by 2025.

Enterprises in Siming not only enjoy improved housing, medical and educational facilities, which enables them to attract more innovative personnel, but also benefit from a strong atmosphere of innovative entrepreneurship.

Meiya Pico, a leading provider of digital forensic and cybersecurity products, was established in the district in 1999. Since 2014, it has expanded its business to a number of international markets.

With a valuation of more than 15 billion yuan and 45 percent of domestic market share for digital forensic products, the company's revenue reached more than 184 million yuan in the first quarter of this year, a 28 percent year-on-year increase.

Cai Zhiping, deputy general manager of Meiya Pico, said that Siming district has been upgrading its business service system by announcing preferential policies, setting up a professional service platform and improving the environment.

Siming district has policies to provide financial support to businesses in the construction, software and information, trade and commerce sectors.

"Meiya Pico's development could not have been achieved without the support of the Xiamen and Siming governments," said Cai.

In recent years, advanced technologies such as big data, artificial intelligence and cloud computing have become new growth engines for the company.

Meiya Pico has built several market supervision and management platforms that utilize big data to assist local government and administrative units improve their work efficiency.

"In the future, Meiya Pico will continue to make use of technology and resources to provide convenient services to the public," said Cai.

[email protected]

(China Daily 10/18/2018 page24)