> General Background

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With a history of 3000 years and a glorious revolutionary tradition, Chongqing is situated at the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, at 105°11' - 110°11' east longitude and 28°10' - 32°13' north latitude. It is 470 kilometers from east to west and 450 kilometers from north to south. Chongqing neighbors Hubei and Hunan in the east, and Guizhou in the south, it neighbors Sichuan in the west and Shanxi in the north. The terrain slopes down to the Yangtze River valley from south to north, and is therefore quite undulating. Chongqing 's eastern is lower than the western, lots of hills in the northwest and middle area, with Daba Moutain and Wuling Mountain to the southeast. The main rivers are Yangtze River , Jialing River , Wujiang River , Fujiang River, Qijiang River and Daning River .  

Because of its buildings on hillsides and mountains surrounding the city, Chongqing has got the renown as "Mountain City". Moreover, since the subtropical climate with an average annual precipitation of 1000 millimeters, the land is evergreen all the year round. The four seasons in Chongqing are characterized as a warm winter, a hot summer, a nearly spring and a short autumn.

Administrative Division & Population

Presently Chongqing is China's biggest municipality in terms of area and population. It covers an area of 82,400 sq. km. and administers 15 districts, 4 county-level cities and 21 counties. A ccording to statistics by the end of 2002, the total population is 31.07 million, of which non-agricultural population is 11.3095 million, representing 36.4% of the total. Population density is 371 person / sq. km. Population of minority nationalities is about 1.973 million, representing 6.37% of the total.

Natural Resources

-Biological resources

Chongqing has a large rural area where is abundant with rice, pig, tea, silkworm cocoon, citrus fruits, tobacco and raw materials for Chinese medicine. Chongqing has 12 counties out of 100 highest hog-yield counties in the country. Rongchang hog ranks the first of China 's three best varieties of studhogs and is reputed to be China's treasure. Shizhu County produces one ninth of China's Angora rabbits. Chongqing is China's biggest producer of natural tung oil. Qianjiang region teems with over 500 species of Chinese medicinal raw materials. Its output over 300 tons listed for purchase by the state tops that of the nation. Also developed in Chongqing is silkworm cocoon production, output of which ranks fourth in China .

-Mineral resources

Over 40 kinds of minerals have been known and exploited, 25 kinds of minerals' reserves including coal, natural gas, strontium, rock salt, manganese, bauxite, marble, lime-stone, barytes and barium have been ascertained. Among these, reserves and quality grade of coal, natural gas, bauxite, rock salt, strontium, manganese and barium occupy distinctive advantages in whole China. Chongqing has rich natural gas reserve, and it is an important nationwide exploiting area. The known reserves of strontium, manganese and barium ranks first, second and third respectively in China .

-Hydropower Resources

Chongqing has an average total amount of water resources of 5000 billion cubic meters, and total hydropower reserves of 14.4 million kilowatt. After the completion of Three Gorges Project, most of 1084 square kilometers of water area in the reservoir area will provide Chongqing with great advantages for its aquiculture and hydropower exploitation. The total hydroelectric installed capacity every per sq. km. of Chongqing is three times of the national average. By the prominent limestone caves, there are rich resources of mineral water with great potential reserves for exploitation.

Industry

Industry is the mainstay of Chongqing's economy. There are almost 10,000 factories with fixed assets of over 73 billion yuan and a working staff of 1.2 million. Its pillar industries include machine building, metallurgy, chemicals, environmental protection, foods and tourism. In addition, prominent industries, such as electronics, building materials, glass and ceramics and daily use chemicals are also comparatively well developed. The increments of industrial production in 1999 had risen by 10.5%.

The automobile and motorcycle industries in Chongqing together with those in Shanghai , Changchun and Shiyan are regarded as the four biggest motor vehicle manufacturing centers in the country. In 1999, Chongqing manufactured 0.219 million automobiles and l.75 million motorcycles. Total profit and tax paid rank first in the country. Qingling light truck, Hongyan heavy-duty truck, Changan van, Jialing and Jianshe motorcycles are well-known across the country. In the first 5 months of this year, Changan Automobile (Group) Co., Ltd. manufactured and sold 85,113 and 77,121 autos respectively, increasing by 29.6% and 34% over the preceding year. Its production and sales rise to the second best in China and the first in the field of minicars. In the first day of the new millenium, the company planned to sell 200,000 vehicles and earned 7-billion-yuan profits. Up to May 28, the company has produced totally 800,000 automobiles and become China's largest manufacturer of minicars.

Recently Chongqing Government awarded Chongqing Top 50 Industrial Enterprises in 1999, including Qingling Automobile (Group) Co. Ltd. In 1999, the top 50 achieved 8.691-billion-yuan industrial incremental value, levied 4.747-billion-yuan taxes, and earned 1.877-billion-yuan profits. Their comprehensive economic index reached 162.98%, 95.32% over the average level of Chongqing enterprises.

Chongqing is one of China's six chemical production bases. The major ones are natural gas chemicals and fine chemicals. Products fall into nearly 1000 varieties, including paints and titanium dioxide powder. The methanol production tops the country and the output of dyestuff ranks second in China .

Chongqing is one of the ten iron and steel production bases across the country. The total steel output in 1999 was l.74 million tons. The Southwest Aluminum Processing Plant possesses world-level advanced equipment and its capacity is 0.21 million tons a year.

Actually, the overall thought of the industry structure reorganization has been designed: to cultivate and develop information industry, biology and pharmaceutics and improve automation and chemical two pillar industries. Food industry and architectural materials will be the new pillar industries.