Economy
The Silk Road, prosperous through the Han and Tang Dynasties, is the famous passageway in China's history for economic and cultural exchange between East and West. As a result of textual research, Shandong area, with Zibo as its center, was the major place of silk supply at that time, and was one of the origins of the "Silk Road", Today, Zibo, as producer of silk and light textile products, remains an important place in the whole country and enjoys tremendous reputation on the market both at home and abroad..
Zibo abounds in natural resources. More than 50 kinds of mineral reserves have been found and coal, iron, bauxite, coal clay, chemical limestone, pottery clay, etc. are the main place of origin in Shandong Province because of their big reserves, high grade, and broad distribution. Zibo’s north part is abundant in petroleum and natural gas. The city was initially established as a mining city, but now it is undergoing technological upgrading and industrial transformation for further development. Only a few years before (maybe around 2002 or before), on account of high proportion of heavy industry and carelessness about industrial pollution, the city paid a price on both its environment and economics. Afterwards, people of this city made their minds to improve the environment. Small coal mines and chemical factories are closed,while all big plants are asked to install sewage disposal to get control of gas and dust. Nowadays Zibo is proud to have the first three municipal sewage treatment plants that with the treated water reaches the Grade-A1 standard of "Integrated wastewater discharge standard"GB8978—1996. Air here is also widely acknowledged to be much better now.
In 2008, the total industrial output value of Zibo reached 532 billion yuan RMB. After one hundred years of development, Zibo has a solid industrial foundation. Since 1992, Zibo has always been one of the top 50 cities in China with the greatest comprehensive strength. In 2008, its GDP was 231.7 billion yuan RMB, ranking just below Qingdao, Yantai, Jinan and Weifang within the province. The ratio among the agriculture, industry and service sectors was 3.5%, 64.8%, 31.7%, which indicate the city still has a lot to do to readjust its industrial structure.
Read more about this topic: Zibo
Famous quotes containing the word economy:
“It enhances our sense of the grand security and serenity of nature to observe the still undisturbed economy and content of the fishes of this century, their happiness a regular fruit of the summer.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Even the poor student studies and is taught only political economy, while that economy of living which is synonymous with philosophy is not even sincerely professed in our colleges. The consequence is, that while he is reading Adam Smith, Ricardo, and Say, he runs his father in debt irretrievably.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)