Xi'an is coming up trumps as it looks to restore its old glory

Chinese micro bloggers recently voted Xi'an the country's most frustrated and lost city. It may be hard to credit it, but in its glory days Xi'an was not only the capital of the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907) but also the world's biggest metropolis with a population of nearly 1 million.

How far it has fallen in stature is illustrated by the fact that these days its fame and fortune are eclipsed by dozens of cities in the country's east, and it has largely been reduced to depending on a campaign dubbed Go West that the central government designed to give the western regions a new injection of life.

"Xi'an, the hub of the Northwest, and Chengdu, Chongqing the Southwest, are coming into their prime years," says Zeng Zhaoning, professor at the School of Economics and Management, Xi'an Shiyou University.

One sign of what Zeng talks of comes in the shape of a factory being built by the South Korean electronics giant Samsung in Xi'an.

The company's NAND flash memory plant began to be built last year. The company has outlaid $7 billion in the first phase of the project, and the plant will start producing flash memory chips before the end of the year. Investment in the project's three phases will total $30 billion, Samsung says, and the factory is expected to generate sales worth 66 billion yuan a year, and attract 160 related enterprises.

Last year Xi'an's GDP totaled 437 billion yuan. Although it was 4 percentage points higher than the country's average, it remained low compared with Chengdu's 814 billion yuan and Chongqing's 1.2 trillion yuan.

Strong growth in the high-tech sector is powered by the city's more than 80 universities and colleges, and nearly 1,000 research institutions.

"After more than 10 years of growth, Xi'an is building up its skills base, and this needs to be complemented with energy supplies, transport and effective government services," says Gu Mengbin, a finance and investment expert at Shaanxi Academy of Social Sciences.

The city is also putting increased emphasis on tourism.

"Xi'an's development involves a couple of economic and social indicators," says Wang Changshou, director of the academy's Cultural Industry Institute. "With our historic heritage and current industry structure, culture and travel will be the breakthrough."

The city needs to incorporate folk customs including the Shaanxi Opera, shadow puppets, pictures and drawings of Chang'an, and dancing and music of the Han and Tang Dynasties into the whole travel package, Wang adds.

One example is the spectacular Everlasting Regret, which is put on at Huaqing Palace twice a day from April to October. In it the celebrated poem Song of Everlasting Regret is turned into a dance performance that portrays the true story of the Tang Emperor Li Longji and his concubine Yang in Xi'an 1,000 years ago.

The city says it drew nearly 11.5 billion yuan from tourism in the first quarter this year, up 25.7 percent on the corresponding period last year.

The US, Britain, Germany and Italy are Xi'an's top four sources for foreign visitors. While maintaining double-digit growth in these markets, Russian tourists were in the top 10 for the first time.

One thing that is keeping a cap on foreign visits is the paucity of direct international flights to the city. Most of the 29 international airlines that service the city fly via Beijing or Shanghai.

But that may be changing, because Finland's flag carrier Finnair has said it plans to start nonstop flights between Helsinki and Xian on June 14 with three flights a week in either direction until October 26.

Contact the writers at zhanglei@chinadaily.com.cn and luhongyan@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 05/17/2013 page12)