Delegation from China to visit Sri Lanka

The Department of Commerce of the Jilin Province of China is making arrangements to send a high-powered delegation consisting of decision makers in the Dept of Commerce and a number of businessmen to Sri Lanka in order to explore trade and investment possibilities.

The nine-member delegation is scheduled to leave for Sri Lanka on March 5 and the local programme will be arranged by the National Chamber of Commerce with the assistance of the Dept of Commerce of Sri Lanka.

The delegation is scheduled to meet the Minister of Export Development and International Trade and senior officials of EDB, Dept of Commerce and the BOI. Jilin is located in the middle of North-East China, bordering Russia and North Korea and has a total area of 187,400 sq kms with a population of 27.2 mn.

The auto industry, chemical industry, farm produce processing are the pillar industries in the Jilin Province, while, pharmaceuticals, food, electronic industries are the leading ones. Owing to unique conditions for agricultural production and long being known as "Golden Corn Belt" and "Home town of Soya-beans", Jilin Province is an important commodity grain base and an emerging livestock industry base with farm produce, livestock and poultry products in large scale and good quality.

It has formed a batch of leading enterprises like Dacheng, Huanglong, Jiliang, Haoyur, Deda and Huazheng.

In the industrial sphere, Changchun Railway Passenger-car Company is the largest railway passenger-car manufacturer not only in China but even in Asia. The FAW Group, the cradle of China's auto industry, was established and put into production in 1953 and is the largest auto production base in China.

It has formed a production chain of heavy, medium and light duty vehicles and sedans and its name has entered the list of World Fortune 500. Auto, petro-chemistry and farm produce processing are the three great backbone industries of the province while pharmacy, photo-electronic, high tech, energy, metallurgy, building materials, textile and tourism are advantageous industries.

In addition, Jilin has abundant traditional medicine resources with approximately 27,000 varieties of wild plants and 9,000 varieties of medicinal herbs.

With rapid development of the opening up, Jilin Province has already established trade and economic relations with over 150 countries and regions.