Economy

Zhonghua Restaurant, a renovated building along Changdi Middle road in the waterfront district.Jiangmen was selected by the Chinese state as a pilot city for a nationwide information programme. It was also chosen by the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (PECC) as a trial city for the Regional Integration for Sustainable Economics (RISE) project. According to the "Report on Investment Environment in China 2003" by the World Bank, Jiangmen ranked the fourth after Shanghai, Hangzhou and Dalian of 23 cities under evaluation in China. Among various indicators, Jiangmen excelled in infrastructure, labour redundancy, proportion of joint ventures in all firms, informal payments to government, taxation, productivity and the investment rate.The economic development strategies within Jiangmen focus on the three urban districts, and the south, middle and north lines. It is planned to develop four main economic areas: the central urban district of the city, the Yinzhou Lake (銀州湖) economic area, and two economic areas along the various transport axes.Manufacturing industriesSimilar to other cities in the western Pearl River Delta, the manufacturing sector plays a significant role in Jiangmen's economy. The chief industries include manufacturing of motorcycles, household appliances, electronics, paper, food processing, synthetic fibers and garments, as well as textiles and stainless steel products. Some worldwide brand names have factories in Jiangmen such as Asia Pacific Resources International Holdings, ABB Group and Lee Kum Kee foods.Uranium processing plantThe city was the proposed site of a $6.5 billion, 40 billion renminbi, uranium processing plant which would have supplied about half of the enriched uranium needed by China's nuclear power plants. Announcement of the plant in July 2013 was met by public protests. The proposal was withdrawn out of "respect for public opinion" shortly thereafter.Jiangmen portJiangmen Port is the second largest river port in Guangdong province. The local government plans to develop a harbour industrial zone with heavy industries to include petrochemical and machinery plants, as well as an ocean-based economy.

Transport

Jiangmen has a mature network of inter-city highway (between Guangzhou, Foshan, Zhuhai, Zhongshan, Yangjiang etc.). It sits astride a key route between Guangzhou and the southwest region of its home province, and also Guangxi Province.A network of intra-city roadways has been built since the late 1990s to facilitate industrial integration within the city.Local busRailways came to Jiangmen fairly recently. The city is served by the Xinhui branch of the Guangzhou–Zhuhai Intercity Mass Rapid Transit (opened 2011), which provides frequent service to Guangzhou South Railway Station, where connections to the nation's high-speed railway network are available. Since the late 2012, Jiangmen is also served by the freight-only Guangzhou–Zhuhai Railway.Making use of the Jiangmen Port facilities, Chu Kong Passenger Transport (CKS) connects Jiangmen with high speed ferry services to Hong Kong (95 nautical miles) taking about 2.5 hours each way.

Geography

The city is located on the lower reaches of the Xijiang or West River, in the west of the Pearl River Delta in the middle of southern Guangdong Province. It faces the South China Sea in the south and is 100 kilometres (62 mi) away from Guangzhou and Zhuhai by highway. Jiangmen city has an area of 9,260 square kilometres (3,580 sq mi), about one quarter the size of the Pearl River Delta.The climate is subtropical with monsoonal influences. The annual average temperature is 21.8 °C (71.2 °F).

History

Historically, Jiangmen Town was a community under the administration of nearby Xinhui County. Jiangmen, however, was forced to open to western trade in 1902. A legacy of this period is a historic waterfront district lined with western-style buildings. The city has an ongoing renewal project which is restoring many of these buildings. Jiangmen was proclaimed a city in 1951 and later became the prefectural seat for the "Four County" region including Taishan, Kaiping, Xinhui, Enping. (In Mainland China but not abroad, the area became known as the "Five Counties" when Heshan was added to Jiangmen's jurisdiction.)In 2011, the city banned pet dogs in public after rabies killed 42 people over the preceding 3 years. The city reserved a 13-acre site to allow rural Chinese to adopt the 30,000 dogs, but public outcry led to a softer implementation where violators would be told to leave rather than have the dog confiscated.