City Introduction of Jiangsu, China: Changshu

Major Economic Indicators (2007)

Source: Changshu Economic&Social Development Report 2007

Introduction

Changshu, a county-level city under the jurisdiction of Suzhou, is situated in the southeast of Jiangsu Province in Yangtze River Delta. Changshu means “forever harvest” in Chinese, and was named for the high-level agriculture civilization that Changshu has enjoyed since ancient time, due to the mild climate and fertile land. Geographically, Changshu borders Taicang to the east, Kunshan and Suzhou to the south, Wuxi and Jiangyin to the west, the Yangtze River to the north and Zhangjiagang to the northwest. China’s economic and financial hub, Shanghai, is located approximately 100 km away to the east.

Changshu has convenient transport conditions, boasting a well-organized traffic system. The Suzhou-Jiading-Hangzhou Highway and the Shanghai-Changshu-Jiangyin Highway intersect in the city. Conveniently, the Shanghai Hongqiao Airport and the Shanghai Pudong International Airport are distances of merely 90 km and 140 km from Changshu respectively. The Suzhou Station of the Shanghai-Nanjing Railway is 40 km away, while the Changshu Port, renowned for being one of China’s top ten inland-river ports, has routes to over two-hundred and thirty-two ports in fifty different countries and regions.

Economic Features

In 2007, the GDP of Changshu grew by 18% from the previous year to RMB 97.2 billion, ranking eighth in Jiangsu. The industry sector contributed approximately 59.1% to the GDP. The total industrial output, from enterprises with designated size and above, rose 26.8% to RMB 201.3 billion, of which 51.8% was contributed from heavy industries.

The mainstream heavy industry in the city is metallurgy, while textiles- and garments-manufacturing makes up the city’s major light industries. In 2007, the metallurgy sector generated RMB 32.6 billion industrial output, accounting for nearly 16.2% of the total from the city. As one of the traditional textiles industrial bases, the textiles and garments industries contributed to almost one third of the city’s total industrial output.

The total foreign trade value exceeded US$10.6 billion in 2007, up 69.3% year-on-year, while the export value has increased by 60.4% year-on-year to US$6.7 billion. The export of textiles, and mechanical and electronic products, each accounted for 28.3% of the total export value. Major export destinations include the U.S., the E.U., Japan and South Korea.  

Changshu attracted US$1.6 billion FDI in 2007, representing an increment of 5.9% year-on-year, while the utilized FDI was US$696 million, up 8.3% year-on-year. A large percentage of the investments came from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan. By the end of 2007, there were totally nineteen Fortune 500 enterprises operating in Changshu, including Toyota from Japan, Hon Hai Precision Industry from Taiwan, and Delphi Corporation from the U.S.