Word: globalization
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...booming east coast in progress and prosperity. Nine years ago, Beijing sought to begin closing this development gap by investing heavily in highways, airports and other infrastructure across the western region. This has helped to kick-start growth. So has geography: Xi'an's lack of exposure to crashing global markets means it has barely been singed by the crisis. In fact, the city has benefited. It's received $230 million of Beijing's $585 billion stimulus package, which helped accelerate the construction of a new subway system, highways and other projects. A similar scenario has been playing...
Though he doesn't know it, shop manager Zhu Baohua is on the front lines of the battle to reform the global economy. Zhu's three-floor electronics store, crammed with Sony TVs, Motorola cell phones and HP PCs, is located in a nondescript neighborhood in the western Chinese city of Xi'an. Far from China's dynamic coastal manufacturing and financial centers, Xi'an for decades has been an economic backwater known mainly as the home of China's famed terra-cotta warriors, reminders of the city's glory days as a capital of ancient dynasties...
...This kind of exuberant consumer behavior helps to explain why China has powered through the global recession with only limited damage. Local officials expect Xi'an's gross domestic product to surge 13.5% in 2009, far faster than the central government's 8% target for the national economy. Even more importantly, the thriving economy in this city of 8 million lends hope that China might be able to complete its next great economic transformation. China has come to depend too much upon exports and investment for growth. What's needed is economic rebalancing, so that domestic consumption contributes more...
...investments in Xi'an tend to be more domestically focused. In October, Applied Materials, a California-based maker of manufacturing equipment for the semiconductor industry, opened a solar-power research center in Xi'an, part of a $250 million investment in the city. The facility, unique to Applied Materials' global operations, will house solar-cell production lines to devise new ways of bringing down the costs of manufacturing panels. Though the results can be utilized in factories anywhere, the center is directed to a great degree at expanding the company's business within China. "China is where all the customers...
...German acting general manager of the Kempinski Hotel, located on the city's outskirts, has been surprised by the kind of visitors filling his rooms. After the five-star hotel opened in June 2008, management expected tourists arriving from overseas to see the terra-cotta warriors. When the global recession hit, he feared his business might suffer. Instead he found visitors pouring in from other parts of China, many attending conferences being held by Chinese companies at the hotel. Now, with Chinese clientele making up 80% of his business, Wiegandt has refocused his marketing efforts away from...