Go west, go Chengdu

The path to achieving these milestones began when the country launched the Great Western Development Strategy in 2000.

Before that time, Chengdu was not seen as an international city, and it had little global profile, according to Chinese media report.

That year, 30 of the Fortune Global 500 set up operations in Sichuan, and McDonald's opened its first restaurant in western China in Chengdu.

The national strategy brought Chengdu new momentum. A key element of the blueprint was introducing and supporting the development of the IT industry in Sichuan.

Intel, the world's largest semiconductor maker, announced in early 2003 that it would set up a factory in Chengdu to test semiconductor chip packages. The plant began operating in 2005. Now, one out of every two of the laptop microchips made in the world is produced in the city.

In an interview with Sichuan Daily, Ge Jun, executive director of Intel China, called Chengdu a "legend" and a "typical example of western China's openness and integration into the global economy".

He says his company, which has invested a total of $600 million in Chengdu since 2003, would release a report at the upcoming Fortune Forum to sum up its decade-long history of investment in Chengdu and forecast the future.

Many other IT giants are following Intel's lead, including Dell, Lenovo, Foxconn, Compal Electronics and Wistron.

Local leaders say that foreign investors are drawn to Chengdu because of its talent pool and global traffic network.

In 2011, Kelly Services, a leading global human resources company, and three Chinese professional agencies released the Kelly Services Global Employee Index Research Report, which ranked Chengdu, Beijing and Shanghai as the top three cities in China in terms of talent retention.

Chengdu is the fourth-biggest air hub in China behind Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. The Shuangliu airport had a total of more than 30 million passengers in 2012.

A direct flight between Chengdu and Melbourne, Australia, was opened on Feb 28, bringing the airport's total number of direct international routes up to 28 and linking major cities like Amsterdam, Bangalore and Singapore.

Flights to Paris and London are planned. The airport aims to have more than 30 international direct lines by the end of 2013.

Chengdu also owns the biggest railway container hub in Asia. In 2012, it opened two direct rail freight services that connect to Europe - one to Duisburg, Germany and another to Lodz, Poland.

Five Strategies

Improvements to transportation and logistics networks are an important part of the Five Metropolitan Prosperity Strategies that the Chengdu government has adopted in an effort to develop the city into the nucleus of western China's economic growth.

In addition to having more international air and rail connections, Chengdu will prioritize the development of public transportation, accelerate the construction of subway lines and build a diversified, high-volume and seamless multi-layered mass transit system.

It will strengthen its urban high-speed passenger rail as well as the inter-city highway network connecting the city center with Tianfu New Zone, two local economic growth hubs. The new urban traffic system will traverse the six major regions of the city, and it is expected to lower travel time across the city to half an hour.

Chengdu will also speed up the construction of a high-speed rail line linking Leshan and Mianyang, two other major cities in Sichuan province.

It will launch major projects such as the city's second airport and Chengdu-Lanzhou Railway as soon as possible too.

Chengdu will also quicken its step in the construction of four-hour and eight-hour high-speed railway rings.

Additionally, the strategies also aim to increase the size and value of industries size while optimizing the infrastructure of newly-built economic and technological zones and integrating development of the three rings of Chengdu.

Augmenting the size and value of various industries will underpin Chengdu's objective of becoming the heart of western China's economic development.

Chengdu's rise relies on the integrated fostering of the primary, secondary and tertiary industries, and it is powered by the advanced manufacturing sector, which is highly concentrated, correlated and efficient.

'Frontrunner'

When trying to explain the secret behind Chengdu's fast growth in recent years, Deng, the regional economics ex-pert at Sichuan University, stressed the city's role as a frontrunner in China's economic reform.

"Reform has brought Chengdu dynamics," she says.

Deng said urbanization, based on coordinated development, will be "a major engine" for China's economic development in the coming two to three decades.

"Chengdu has accumulated much experience in urbanization through its explorations, but it still has a lot to do in the future. The city will still be a frontrunner in the reform in the future," she said.