The state will also provide Hainan with any necessary financial and material aid. Compared to all other provinces. Hainan will have less obligations and enjoy more power.

Future Economic Ascent

Members of the Preparatory Group for the Establishment of Hainan Province are working hard. According to the group head Xu Shijie, a number of local laws and regulations will be drafted to implement state preferential policies. The Hainan government will bestow more decision making power on various enterprises and companies to mobilize their initiatives.

Development Strategy. While mainly developing its industry, Hainan will also attempt to stimulate agriculture, commerce, tourism and services. International economic exchanges will be actively sought.

According to plan, the island province will be divided into five economic districts. The northern district around Haikou, the provincial capital, will concentrate on light industry, food processing, rubber products, machinery, electronics and service industries. The southern district will centre around the city of Sanya and concentrate on tourism and high-tech industry. In the east, around Qionghai and Wenchang, agriculture, farm produce and food processing, and textile and light industries will be the main concerns. The northwestern district will centre around Nada Town and feature production of titanium white, the processing of aquatic products, and petrochemical industries. The southwest with Basuo Town as its centre will concentrate on iron and steel, cement and other heavy industries.

Huan Xiang, a noted Chinese scholar, said that Hainan resembles Hawaii in climate and natural resources. "Hawaii developed on the basis of its agriculture, farm produce processing as well as tourism," said Huan. "We may be able to learn from Hawaii's experience to develop Hainan."

Infrastructural Facilities

 By the end of this year, a thermal power station with a generating capacity of 150,000 kW will be constructed near Macun, a suburb of Haikou, to help ease the pressure on the local power supply. A large hydropower station will also be built in the western part of the island, and a thermal power station in northwest Hainan this year.

Efforts will be aimed at building up a generating capacity of 1.95 million kW by 1995.

Expansion projects are in full swing at the ports of Haikou, Basuo, Sanya and Qinglan. The expansion project at the Haikou Airport is nearing completion. The airport now caters for Boeing 757, with air routes to Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai and Chengdu. The Fenghuang International Airport in Sanya City will be built and opened in 1990, providing for regular flights to Hong Kong every day.

The 1,000 km of highways across Hainan are generally 12 metres wide and asphalt-covered. The Haikou-Sanya Highway is presently being rebuilt.

Hainan's railways extend 210 km from Sanya City to the Shiluo Iron Ore Mine. Another 188 km of rails will be laid to Haikou before 1995.

The 1,800-line telecommunications system, providing links with Guangzhou, Beijing and Hong Kong, started operating in 1987. Digital telephone exchanges, imported from Italy and installed in the central and western parts of the island, have just been put into service. Plans for the laying of optical fibre cables in east Hainan are being discussed and revised.

The Telecommunications Building in Haikou will be constructed in September. Equipped with 5,000-channel programmed telephone exchanges, this building will make it possible for Haikou residents to make direct calls to Shilou, Basuo and Sanya.

Talents

Hainan has four schools of higher learning. However, they can not meet the needs of the latest development, which explains why Hainan Province must recruit talent from other parts of China. Candidates for positions in Hainan numbered 20,000 by the end of last January; another 100,000 applicants submitted written applications to work in the province. About 84 percent of them had college education. The Hainan Talent Exchange Centre is using computers to process information on the applicants.