Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, sits in the heart of Chengdu plain in southwestern China. Chengdu, at 540 meters above the sea level, embracing the sub-tropical moist monsoon climate with distinctive four seasons, enjoys mild summer and winter. The annual average temperature stays between 15.2~16.6℃ with the annual average rainfall hovering around 945.6 MM and more than 337 days free from frost. The population of 10.59 million people scattering on the total region of 12,400 square km makes out the density of 854 people per square km. Endowed with a history longer than 2,300 years and abundant historical heritages, Chengdu is long being served as an important outpost in southwest China and the center of Gu Shu (Ancient Sichuan) culture showing its distinctive humanity, custom, and the culture of diet and leisure. The coverage of afforestation and greenbelt are 32.9% and 30.4%; the urban noise all year around stays under 54.6 decibels; the pollution index of the urban air stays under API 100; and the water quality reaches the standard of EEC (98).
 
The function and status in China and western China
 
Serving as the outpost of the West Development Policy, Chengdu is ratified by the State Council as the “centers of science and technology, commerce and trade, and finance, and the hubs of transportation and communication”. Its GDP reached RMB 218.57 billion in 2004, and has been keeping a strong increase by over 10% in the last 12 years.

Science and technology
Chengdu is the most important scientific and technological R&D center in western China as well as a talents pool with 29 colleges and universities, over 2,700 scientific and research institutions and 580 thousand specialists in various fields. It has the comparative strong integrated technology force and R&D capabilities in the fields of electronics, biology, hi-tech materials, optical fiber communication and aeronautics.

Market
As the largest commerce and trade center in western China, Chengdu has a huge market with a population of 87 million with great impact on the southwestern China as well as the southeastern and middle Asia. The total volume of retail consumptions reached 87.53 billion RMB in 2004. In the mean time, with the development of commodity market, Chengdu has developed the elementary markets such as productive material, transactions of property rights, finance, technology and labor force, and a healthy and complete market is showing its shape. Its attractive force for outside investment, radiation ability as well as the urban integrated service functions are being strengthened in passing days. Chengdu’s transaction volume of securities and the private cars number also rank the 3rd.

Finance
Chengdu has established its status as the regional financial center with most complete types and numbers of financial institutions. The exchange volume of the financial institutions in Chengdu ranks the first among the cities in western China, and the stock turnover ranks the third in China which is only after Shanghai and Shenzhen. So far, 13 foreign-funded financial institutions including Standard Chartered Bank, National Bank of Paris, OCBC Group, United Overseas Bank, Bank of East Asia and HSBC have established their own representative offices and branches in Chengdu. The People’s Bank of China, China Banking Regulatory Commission, China Securities Regulatory Commission and China Insurance Regulatory Commission have established their own major regional branches and agencies in Chengdu supervising the business exchanges of banks, securities and insurance in southwestern China.

Transportation
Chengdu is the transportation hub in southwestern China owning 8 expressways and it is also the overlap of 4 railways. Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport is one of the 6 largest airports in China, running 10 international lines and more than 200 domestic lines for present.

Telecommunication
Chengdu is one of the top 8 telecommunication hubs in China, and also the network station of Chinese “8-verticals and 8-horizons”optical fiber trunk lines. Transmission of long distance calls and local calls has been digitalized with access to over 180 countries and regions and over 600 domestic cities. The Chengdu information station has been established with the internet data center and the internet switch center being in service now. The switch phone capacity, mobile phone subscribers, internet users, newspaper circulation, and the business volume of post, package and remittance rank at the top among the large cities of China.

Power Resources
The potential amount of water and electricity resource is 120 million kw, which occupies the 27% of the nation’s total technical potential amount. So far, the capacity of waterpower installation is 10 million kw which only occupies 10% of the total. With the construction of some other power plants being under the construction, the electricity supply capability of Chengdu will become more powerful.

Water Resources
Chengdu has a lot of rivers and plentiful rainfall. The rivers are originated from the mountains and gorges in the west, which keep the river from pollution. The annual total amount of water resources is 30.472 billion cubic meter.