Governor’s Message
The Province of Anhui was established in 1667. The name of the province is originated from the first character of Anqing and that of Huizhou, two prefectures in the realm of governance. “An” implies peace and harmony while “Hui” indicates excellence of the natural landscape and brilliance of humanities.
In compliance with its name, Anhui is a wonderland charmed with long history, splendid culture, beautiful landscape and great fascinations. The 400-kilometre Yangtze River running across Anhui and the 5000 years’ Huaihe River civilization, have bred the broad and profound Hui Culture highlighted by splendid forms of art like the Hui Opera, the Huangmei Opera and the Flower-drum Lanterns Opera. The world cultural and natural heritage Huangshan Mountain and the crowned “Lotus Buddhist Kingdom” Jiuhua Mountain will lead you to a picturesque fairyland on the earth.
Entering into the new era from history, Anhui has stepped onto a new stage of scientific development and speeding-up rise. Taking the regional advantages of its central location and east oriented position in the Changjiang River Delta and facilitated with smooth access to rivers and seas, Anhui has emerged itself on the forefront of widening opening-up process and holding industries shift based on its competitive advantage of natural, science and education, and labor resources, thus become nationwide important energy and raw material base, agro-product supply base, and new processing and manufacturing base. Those backbone enterprises representing the achievement of Anhui’s new industralisation include MaSteel Group, whose steel production has gone beyond 10 million tons; Tongling Nonferrous Metals Group, the largest copper producer in China; Conch Group, the third largest cement producer in the world; and Chery Automobile, a flagship automobile manufacturer of national automobile brands. A list of famous universities and scientific research institutions such as University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) and Hefei Substance Research Institute of Chinese Academy of Sciences, are displaying powerful scientific innovation strength. The construction of Hefei-Wuhu-Bengbu independent innovation and synthetic reform experimental zone is on steady progress, which provides tangible support for Anhui’s innovative development.
At present, 67 million Anhui people are coping positively with the international financial crisis to maintain a steady and speeding economic development. In 2008, Anhui’s GDP increased by 12.7%; the provincial revenue increased by 28.2%; the urban disposable income per capita increased by 13.2%; the rural net income per capita increased by 18.1%. The national economy manifests to be a good tendency of rapid growth, optimal structure and improved people’s livelihood. Looking into the future, we are confident and capable of working together with the other central provinces in international division as an emerging power to make greater contributions to the whole nation’s development.
By deeply carrying out the spirit of the CPC’s 17th Congress and that of General Secretary Hu Jintao’s important speech on his inspection in Anhui, we will focus on the priority task of maintaining steady yet fast economic development, make full effort to expand the domestic demand and ensure growth, adjust the structure and enhance innovation, consecutively deepen reform and expand the opening-up, pay consistent emphasis to people’s livelihood by constructing harmonious society and display a splendid picture scroll with prosperous economy, wealthy people, and friendly ecological environment for the land on the banks of the Yangtze River and Huaihe River.
We cordially invite friends home and abroad to come to Anhui to experience the charm of its natural scenery and humanities and to feel the friendliness of the Anhui people by sightseeing and advice, investment or business presence. We hope to work hand in hand to create a more brilliant and better future for the rise of central China.
