Guiyang and Guian to become business-friendly hub with huge potential

Guiyang, capital city of Southwest China's Guizhou province, and Guian New Area have been increasing the pace of their integrated development in recent years, turning the areas into a "promising land" for investment and innovation as well as business start-ups.

The reason why Guiyang and Guian are the engines of a five-year plan to strengthen Guizhou can be found in the huge potential of the province, which lies in the southeastern part of China, and is abundant in natural resources and energy, favorable policy support and massive talent pools.

During the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20), 75 Fortune 500 companies chose Guiyang to expand their business. Meanwhile, a total of 4,583 projects were brought in to the area. Tempted by Guiyang's international charm, 17 cities around the globe formed friendships with the city. Guiyang also carried out trading activities with 191 countries and regions, with the number of foreign-invested enterprises based here reaching 432.

But what exactly is it that makes Guiyang and Guian so business-friendly? To begin with, Guizhou province never lacked natural resources. It is located across two river basins – the Yangtze and Pearl river basins. The province is also known as "Southwest China's coal sea", and its other types of energy, such as solar, geothermal and wind energy, are also enjoying accelerated development. As the only province in the southern part of China that boasts the unique combination of water, fire and coal, Guizhou is a veritable treasure trove of energy.

As the original site of China's West to East power transmission project, Guizhou welcomes outside businesses with its key practical advantage – low electricity costs – which to a great degree contributes to Guizhou's status as China's big data center.

IT giants including Tencent, Huawei, and Apple, as well as China's three major telecommunications operators – China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom – have all established data centers in the province.

Guiyang and Guian therefore have become a magnet for the big data sector and a hub for the whole digital industry, with the added value of the regions' digital economy last year hitting 164.9 billion yuan ($24.74 billion), an increase of 10.8 percent, accounting for 38.2 percent of the province's whole.

Another important reason for Guiyang and Guian's prosperity is that both the regional population and number of talents are increasing. Boasting 3.1 million people of working age and various vocational training programs, Guiyang and Guian are never short of high-level personnel.

But what have Guiyang and Guian done to make those talents stay, instead of making themselves a temporary shelter from which talents move to other parts of China? By applying the 'talent service green card' mechanism, the two regions have created one-stop talent service halls. They also protect talents' interests through newly-established apps, WeChat public accounts and other platforms.