Maanshan - Anhui's newly-appointed Party chief Zhang Baoshun said here Thursday that the East China province welcomes all kinds of enterprises, especially multinationals, to invest in the Industrial Transfer Demonstration Zone in the Anhui Yangtze River City Belt.

Speaking at a policy briefing on the zone, which was organized by Anhui provincial government and the China Association of Enterprises with Foreign Investment (CAEFI), Zhang said the province will provide preferential policies to investors.

More than 260 people, including 110 participants from 56 major domestic and foreign companies, attended the event.

The zone, covering 10 cities along the Yangtze in Anhui and approved by the central government on Jan 12, is the first national blueprint formulated by the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and the State Council for inland regions to embrace industrial transfer from home and abroad.

Zhang, who became secretary of CPC Anhui Provincial Committee on May 31, affirmed that amid intensified globalization, the trend toward inter-regional industrial transfers, or the relocation of low-end industries from developed areas to low-cost regions, is becoming a must.

The zone covers 76,000 sq km with a population of 30.58 million and includes the nine cities of Hefei, Wuhu, Maanshan, Tongling, Anqing, Chizhou, Chaohu, Chuzhou and Xuancheng, as well as two districts in Lu'an city. Anhui currently has 17 prefecture-level cities with a total population of 68 million.

Shi Guangsheng, former minister of foreign trade and economic cooperation and now CAEFI president, noted here that the demonstration zone is offering "immense opportunities" and "bright future" for domestic and foreign investors.

Shi said he believes that the zone will encourage more foreign entrepreneurs to invest in newly merged and labor-intensive businesses in central and western China.

The development of the area will promote the progress of the country's inland regions, he said at the opening ceremony of the policy briefing and project-matching event.

Anhui Governor Wang Sanyun said the demonstration zone has attracted foreign investment totaling $1.31 billion between January and April 1, a rise of 14.4 percent over the year-earlier period and accounting for 75.9 percent of the total foreign input in Anhui. Sixty-two new investment projects were approved in the zone during the period.

Meanwhile, the governor added, the zone also lured an investment of 151.2 billion yuan ($22.2 billion) from domestic investors in other areas, a jump of 56.7 percent over the same period of last year.

Vincent Legros, managing director of Saint-Gobain PAM China, said that as a multinational corporation ranking the 102nd among World 500, Saint-Gobain started its business in Maanshan in 1997.

He said he believed the new demonstration zone is providing more stable policies for foreign businesspersons and will enhance their confidence about investing in Anhui, adding that his company will expand here in Maanshan.

Zheng Weiwen, Maanshan's Party chief, said the city is designing a Southern Concentrated District for Industry Transfer to undertake industrial relocations from home and abroad, so as to take the lead in the province in promoting the development of the demonstration zone.