Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, China

🇨🇳 Wenzhou is a prefecture-level city in south-eastern Zhejiang province in the People's Republic of China. Wenzhou is located at the extreme south east of Zhejiang Province. It is surrounded by mountains, the East China Sea, and 436 islands, while its lowlands are almost entirely along its East China Sea coast, which is nearly 355 km in length. Most of Wenzhou's area is mountainous.

The city, then known as Yungkia (永嘉, Yǒngjiā), was a prosperous foreign treaty port, which remains well-preserved today. It is situated in a mountainous region and, as a result, has been isolated for most of its history from the rest of the country, making the local culture and language very distinct not only from the rest of China but from neighbouring areas as well. The city is also the native land of many emigrants to Europe and the United States, with many of these Wenzhounese emigrants being entrepreneurs who start restaurants, retail and wholesale businesses in their adopted countries. Wenzhou people make up a large number of ethnic Chinese residents of Italy, where in some regions such as Tuscany, they comprise 90% of all Chinese residents. Significant concentrations of Wenzhounese people can also be found across New York City as well as in France and Spain.

Economy Wenzhou exports food, tea, wine, jute, timber, paper, Alunite (a non-metallic mineral used to make alum and fertilizer). Alunite is abundant and Wenzhou claims to be the "Alunite Capital of the World". Its 10 main industries each exceeding 1.5 billion dollars are electrical machinery, leather products, general equipment, power supply, plastic manufacturing, textile and garment, transport equipment, chemical products, metal products and metal processing.

From the 1990s, low-voltage electric appliances manufacturing became one of the major industries in Wenzhou, with some of the large private enterprises setting up joint ventures with GE and Schneider.

In 1994, exploration for oil and natural gas commenced in the East China Sea 100 km (62 mi) off the coast of Wenzhou. Companies such as Texaco, Chevron, Shell and JAPEX have started to drill for oil but the operations have been largely unsuccessful.

Wenzhou is a city full of vibrant business activities. When China began economic reforms in 1978, Wenzhou was the first city in China to set up individual and private enterprises as well as shareholder cooperatives. It has also taken the lead in carrying out financial system reform and structural reform in townships. Being a pioneer in utilizing marketing mechanism to develop urban constructions, Wenzhou has won a number of firsts in China and set many national records.

From 1978 through 2016, the GDP of Wenzhou, a third-tier city in China, has increased from 1.32 billion RMB to 504.54 billion RMB with the gross fiscal revenue increasing from 0.135 billion RMB to 72.4 billion RMB, and the disposable net per capita income for rural residents increasing from 113.5 RMB to 22,985 RMB. The per capita disposable income for urban residents increased from 422.6 RMB in 1981 to 47,785 RMB in 2016, which is the among the highest in China.

Financial Reform Pilot Project In late March 2012, China's State Council announced that Wenzhou would be the site of a pilot project for the reform of private investment rules. The city had been a significant source of illegal loans, and this project would legalize and provide a regulatory framework for such activities. It has been seen not only as an attempt to legitimize Wenzhou's private finance market, but also as a model for cleaning up underground lending in China as a whole.

Birthplace of China's private economy In the early days of economic reforms, local Wenzhounese took the lead in China in developing a commodity economy, household industries and specialized markets. Many thousands of people and families were engaged in household manufacturing to develop individual and private economy (private enterprise). Up till now, Wenzhou has a total of 240,000 individually owned commercial and industrial units and 130,000 private enterprises of which 180 are group companies, 4 among China's top 500 enterprises and 36 among national 500 top private enterprises. There are 27 national production bases such as "China's Shoes Capital" and "China's Capital of Electrical Equipment", China's 40 famous trademarks and China's famous-brand products and 67 national inspection-exempt products in the city. The development of private economy in Wenzhou has created the "Wenzhou Economic Model", which inspires the modernisation drive in China.

The city of Wenzhou is a world leader in lighter manufacturing with over 500 such companies in the city. The plastic weaving cluster in Wenzhou comprised 1600 enterprises in 2001, employing 42,000 people with an annual output value of 20 billion Yuan. The Local cluster comprised 400 manufacturers in 2001 with a total output of 5 billion Yuan, representing 65 percent of the domestic market share. The cluster is the first in China in terms of market share and sold it products to 60 countries.

There are many areas in which people of Wenzhou opened the first example of private economy in post-1949 China. For instance, Juneyao Airlines started in July 1991, which is the first private airline company in China. Jinwen Rail Way is also the first rail way company which is built with private capital.

Industrial zones • Wenzhou Economic & Technological Development Zone

Wenzhou Economic & Technological Development Zone was established and approved by State Council in 1992. The main traffic system around the zone include No.104 National Highway, Ningbo-Wenzhou Expressway and Wenzhou Bridge. It is located near to Wenzhou International Airport and Wenzhou Port. Industries encouraged in the zone include electrical equipment, electronic information, chemical medicine, building materials, and textiles. • Wenzhou Oujiang River Estuary Industrial Zone

Located in the east of the city proper with industrial focuses mainly on logistics, cultural and tourism industry, smart manufacturing, information technology, as well as electronics and petrochemical industry near the coastal area of Dongtou.

Oufei Project In 2014, the Oufei Project (欧飞工程) was initiated as a land reclamation project in Wenzhou. The original targeted area upon completion was 20.3×104 mu, with an estimated construction cost of 60 billion RMB. The aim of the project is stated to promote economic development, and it would serve as the largest land reclamation project in China as of 2020. In 2015 the project secured an 4.5 billion RMB in a low-interest long-term loans, receiving provincial-level support. The tideland reclamation was accomplished using a vacuum preloading method, with a planned size of 323.4 square kilometres. There was some academic criticism of the project's potential damage to waterbird coastal habitats.