Zhejiang calls merchants back to invest in hometown

(Ecns.cn)--Zhejiang Province has initiated a massive plan to attract back its merchants from other provinces and get them to invest in their home town, according to the 21st Century Business Herald Wednesday. The plan is expected to help the province go through a difficult industrial transformation period.

On March 15, the Ningbo municipal government gave the green light to an initiative to support Zhejiang merchants to start up businesses in the city. The authority also held a meet-and-greet event in Shanghai to buttonhole Zhejiang merchants from the Yangtze River Delta and pitch the advantages of investing in Ningbo.

"Ningbo's action is not an isolated case; attracting merchants to invest back home is a priority of the Zhejiang government in 2012,," said Yao Shaoping, a senior official with the provincal government.

In order to promote this plan, governments at all levels in Zhejiang will provide preferential measures involving tax and land policies to make the task easier for returnee businessmen.

For the past 10 years, Zhejiang's GDP growth has been sliding relentlessly, and in recent years, it has fallen below even neighboring Jiangsu Province.

"The outflow of capital and a great number of companies, combined with a loss of advantage in the traditional industries, have made it difficult for Zhejiang to continue producing the high GDP growth it used to enjoy," said Zhou Dewen, Chairman of the Wenzhou SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) Development Association.