Shapingba is one of the main districts of Southwest China's Chongqing Municipality and Chongqing is one of the four cities directly under the Central Government's jurisdiction.

Located on the west bank of the Jialing River, a major branch of the Yangtze River, prosperous Shapingba District has an area of 396 square kilometres and a population of 1.16 million (including 860,000 permanent residents).

The district is famous for being the city's educational, scientific and cultural centre.

During the War against Japanese Invasion (1937-45) when Chongqing became China's temporary capital, the district attracted numerous members of China's cultural and educational elite.

Today it is home to the city's best universities, middle schools and primary schools, such as Chongqing University, Southwest University of Political Science and Law and Chongqing Nankai Middle School.

The district government has recently drafted a mid-term strategic plan to guide development in the coming 10 to 15 years and started to implement it.

According to the blueprint, the district will sustain fast economic growth with promising prospects for urbanization in its western part where a university town, a microelectronic industrial park and a railway distribution centre are being built.

Chongqing University Town has made dramatic progress since construction began on June 18, 2003. The municipal government praised it as "an unprecedented construction miracle."

With a total investment of 14 billion yuan (US$1.73 billion), the university town will have an area of 22 square kilometres and accommodate 200,000 teachers and students when it is completed in 2010.

Meanwhile construction began at the Xiyong Microelectronic Industrial Park, the Silicon Valley of Chongqing, on October 18, 2005.

In 2005, the Chongqing municipal government decided to invest US$8 billion in building the park during the 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-10).

Upon its completion in 2010, the park will become a development and production base for microelectronics, specializing in chip design and manufacture, solar batteries, software development and electronic materials, with an estimated annual production output of 100 to 150 billion yuan (US$12.5 to 18.75 billion).

On October 25, 2005, HP opened a branch of its global software development centre in the park, the company's fourth software base in China.

Standing next door to the university town, the park will enjoy "brain support" and abundant high-quality human resources from the town's 17 universities and 125 research institutes.

In addition to the large construction projects in the western part of the district, Shapingba eastern part will be improved with an overhaul of the old town's transport network and other local infrastructure.

The district plans to spend 2.2 billion yuan (US$272 million) building and renovating streets and roads.

A series of new landmarks, such as Chongqing Library, the Congress Hall, a riverside park for children and teenagers and an exhibition and conference centre, are now under construction.

(China Daily 09/19/2006 page8)