The Innovation Annual Conference of the 2023 Yabuli China Entrepreneurs Forum held in June is one of the major investment promotion events in Shanxi this year. [Photo by Ruan Yang for China Daily]

Attracting investment to drive local growth remains a priority for authorities in Shanxi province. And their efforts in this area were justified when investment figures from the first three quarters were released recently.

Data released at a news conference hosted by the Information Office of the Shanxi provincial government show that the province saw the signing of agreements on 1,793 projects, with a combined pledged investment totaling 1.02 trillion yuan ($139.43 billion), during the first nine months.

Wang Hongjin, chief of the Shanxi Department of Commerce, said at the news conference that Shanxi is focusing on "long-term effort" to draw investments from across the country and the rest of the world.

He added that investment promotion is one of the major efforts for Shanxi to accelerate industrial transformation and drive economic growth.

"We are satisfied with the performance to date this year," Wang said.

He explained that Shanxi's target for investment attraction for this year is 1.2 trillion yuan. "The combined investment of these signed projects now accounts for about 85 percent of the planned annual total, surpassing our expectations," Wang said.

He estimated that the number of projects beginning construction this year will exceed 1,100, involving a total paid-in investment of about 300 billion yuan.

Wang said the success in investment attraction is partly attributed to the promotional efforts by government institutions.

The Shanxi Department of Commerce, for instance, compiled and published a guidebook for key investment projects in Shanxi early this year, to help investors effectively identify potential industries, destinations and partners for investment cooperation.

The department also planned 95 major investment promotion events. To date 76 events on this task list have been completed.

The activities included promotions in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, the Top 500 Enterprises in Dialogue with Shanxi forum, the Innovation Annual Conference of the 2023 Yabuli China Entrepreneurs Forum and a business networking event during the Tianjin Summer Davos Forum.

In addition, the department has also organized investment promotional events in countries like Germany, Austria, France and Japan, as well as in China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

Shanxi's authorities also highlighted the development of industry chains in investment promotion.

To foster industry chains, the governments at various levels in Shanxi are cooperating with local industrial leaders to build industrial parks, aiming to attract more upstream and downstream resources.

During the first nine months, the move for expanding and extending industry chains resulted in the signing of 100 key projects, with investment totaling 138.5 billion yuan.

Among heavyweight projects docked in Shanxi, the most prominent is the one launched by Shanxi's Jinko Solar. This is a mega-sized comprehensive new energy project with a planned investment of 56 billion yuan.

The agreement on the project was signed in May and its construction started on Sept 26 in the Shanxi Transformation and Comprehensive Reform Demonstration Zone. Scheduled to take two years to complete, it will be capable of producing photovoltaic – or solar power – components with an annual capacity of 56 gigawatts.

"The Jinko project will lead to the extension of the solar power industry chain and help to form an industrial park in its vicinity, attracting more upstream and downstream enterprises," said an official at the Shanxi Transformation and Comprehensive Reform Demonstration Zone.

Yan Jie contributed to this story.