Jiashan County locates in the northeast of Zhejiang province and borders on Shanghai and Jiangsu province. The distance to Shanghai, Hangzhou and Suzhou is within 100 kilometers. The transportation system is complete with water ways, highways and railways. It only takes on hour driving to Hongqiao Airport, Pudong International Airport and Xiaoshan International Airport. JIashan is the first station to contact with Pudong of Shanghai. With 11 towns and 162 villages, Jiashan covers and area of 506 square kilometers and has a population of 380,000 local people and 150,000 from other places. The county town is Weitang town. With flat terrain, fertile land and crossed rivers, Jiashan is typical water land in South China. The water area is 108,000 mu, covering 14% of the total area. The county was established in the fifth year of Xuande reign of Ming dynasty. Jiashan is always the birthplace of talented people because of its profound culture background.

Since the reform and opening up, especially these years Jiashan County implements the following policies such as export-oriented economy, science and education developing the county, urbanization and sustainable development strategy. Now Jiashan has made such achievement in these fields including foreign economy, agriculture, city construction, culture, especially opening economy and private economy relying on introducing foreign investment policy and improving private economy. In 2003 the GDP of Jiashan is 10.23 billion RMB while the per capita GDP is 3223 USD. The proportion of three industries is 10.3:58.3:31.2. The revenue is 1.03 billion RMB while the local revenue is 435 million RMB. The per capita annual net income of farmers is 6138 RMB while the disposable income of urban citizen is 13335 RMB. In 2001 and 2002 Jiashan ranked 31 in the top 100 developed counties in China while in 2003 it ranked 29. Jiashan was honored ‘State Level Hygiene County’, ‘Provincial Level Cultural County’, ‘State Level Advanced County for Scientific and Technological Progress’, ‘State Level Advanced County for Cultural Work’, etc. Jiashan Public Security Bureau has been honored State Level Excellent Public Security Bureau for 5 times. The Jiashan Economic Development Zone was crowned ‘the most successful development zone for Taiwan investors in Zhejiang province’ and was honored Excellent Development Zone in Zhejiang province for continuously 5 years. The offices of Custom and Commodity Inspection are under construction.

Jiashan has introduced 597 foreign-invested projects up to the end of 2003. The foreign investment utilized by contract was 1812 million USD while the foreign investment actually utilized is 474 million USD. We also put our effort to introduce domestic investment. In 2003 the domestic investment in Jiashan is 1325 million RMB and in recent three years is 2.43 billion RMB.

The industrial enterprises in Jiashan are more than 2300 including 570 big enterprises. The value-added industry in 2003 was 5.413 billion RMB, increased 16.9%. During the development, we have formed four pillar industries and they are wood industry and furniture, IT industry, hardware and machinery, textile and costume. The pharmaceutical and auto parts are booming. The industry structure is foreign investment as leading role and domestic investment as base.

In 1998 Jiashan established urbanization as one of the four development objectives and improved the plan, construction and management level constantly. In 2003 the urban construction area is 15.57 square kilometer with a population of 120,000. The urbanization level is 42.6% and the afforestation rate is 34.4%. The service sector increased 15.9% in 2003. Xitang, the ancient town, is one of the first ten historical culture old towns in China and receives 1 million people annually.

Now Jiashan is carrying on the sustainable development objective and improving the economic structure to keep the economy developing healthily.