Speech given by Mr. Gilbert Van Kerckhove
19 May 2000

Ladies and Gentlemen:

As an advisor to the Jiading Industrial Zone I have been impressed by its serious efforts to offer the best possible conditions to foreign investors. In the Shanghai region many industrial zones are competing to attract investors and the different zones offer different advantages.

First of all Shanghai as the center of East China has shown in the past ten years an incredible transformation and modernization. I am fortunate to have worked in Shanghai for the past five years and to understand the importance for China of Shanghai's achievements. I dare to say, Shanghai is eclipsing most other Chinese industrial and commercial centers by its dynamism and attention to the development towards a more efficient environment for industry, trade and commerce. The city offers now a series of advantages in terms of communications, finance and efficiency in its urban development. Many foreigners do not yet fully realize how much Shanghai has transformed itself into a modern metropolis.

The Jiading Zone has its own distinct advantages:

• proximity to Shanghai's economic and industrial powerhouse
• easy and quick access from Shanghai through a modern highway network
• a genuine effort to take into consideration the concerns of investors
• a dynamic administration team to handle the logistics of the Zone
• a modern and pleasant infrastructure of the Zone
• a large and educated labor force in the Jaiding area with lower labor costs than for example the Pudong area