"Is this... project any good?" As someone in business development, I hear this all the time.

I have to say, every turn in investment promotion is a trap—one pit falls, and another one follows.

If you’re not careful, you’ll end up on a sinking ship—and it’s hard to jump ship once you’re on board.

Those people move from place to place, never missing a shot, and never staying anywhere for long.

For local governments looking to attract quality businesses and major investments, it’s a bit like eating durian: first you have to remove the prickly spines, then you can savor the delicious flesh.

They remember the rewards, not the setbacks.

Let’s talk a bit more about the ins and outs of investment promotion. These are personal experiences—real and, unfortunately, helpless.

In Shanghai, there’s a group of people known as “conference bugs.” Without a doubt, their daily work consists of attending meetings all over the place.

Three meetings a day, two meals a day. Not only do they receive generous gifts, but they also pocket an appearance fee.

Then there’s another group that mainly operates within business associations—they have titles and resources to spare.

Their job is to help local governments connect with projects or facilitate investment promotion activities. Meanwhile, the “meeting bugs” act as “lookouts” for these business associations, targeting local government industrial parks.

These people know full well that every region prioritizes investment promotion. Annual spending on investment promotion staff alone approaches 1% of local fiscal revenue. Add in administrative expenses and investment incentives, and the total exceeds 2% of local fiscal revenue.

To put it bluntly, they’re just putting on a show—going through the motions to find ways to get the investment promotion staff to spend their budgets. As for results? Well, as long as your superiors are happy, that’s all that matters.

After working in investment promotion for a long time, I’ve encountered all sorts of people. Among them, middlemen make up the largest group. They frequently broker deals for others and earn commissions in the process. They are characterized by their warmth and hospitality, their broad knowledge, their eloquent speech, and their persuasive charm.

At one event, I met an elderly gentleman in the solar industry who ran a Taiwanese-funded enterprise.

At the time, three regions had established polysilicon production bases. During our conversation, he mentioned that his company was looking for a suitable location and hoped we could recommend a government-run industrial park.

Later, after some investigation, it turned out this wasn’t a Taiwanese-funded photovoltaic company at all—it was just a middleman whose resources were a mix of genuine and fabricated.

This reminds me of a certain semiconductor company with a project worth tens of billions. Without intermediaries, such a project would never have materialized. Thus, these intermediaries are essentially speculators.

Right now, setting aside the project’s development and value, there’s no guarantee of authenticity.

When there seems to be no path ahead, it might be a dead end. However, there is another possibility: finding a way to break through that dead end, which could elevate efficiency to a whole new level.

When it comes to securing projects and resources, it’s better to have a taste of a divine peach than a whole basket of rotten apricots.

[Investment Promotion Network] provides more precise, authentic, and timely information for both investors and enterprises. We consistently uphold the principles of precision and efficiency, enabling one-stop information exchange and facilitating direct telephone contact between investment promoters and investors.

Climbing a Ladder to the Sky

When it comes to new district development, the scene is bustling yet hazy, busy yet vague.

Statistics show that currently, more than 90% of prefecture-level cities in China have planned or are building new districts, and most county-level cities have done the same.

Local governments are enthusiastic about new district development for a variety of reasons.

On one hand, the cost of demolition in old urban areas is too high, and since most of these areas are already developed, they are not conducive to comprehensive redevelopment.

On the other hand, new districts facilitate comprehensive planning, enhance the city’s image, and make it easier to draw up various blueprints.

Once a new district is up and running, it can also generate revenue through large-scale land sales, supplementing local government finances and creating a virtuous cycle.

Some argue that among the national-level new districts actually established in China, only “two and a half” have succeeded. These are the Pudong New Area, the Xiongan New Area, and half of the Sichuan Tianfu New Area.

Have the other new districts merely become “new districts on paper”?

Indeed, when using new districts to attract investment, there are many factors to consider.

01 Distance between the new district and the old city

When a new district is built close to the old city or the main urban area, it can fully benefit from the existing infrastructure and resources nearby.

Commute distances are also short, facilitating the influx of people and industries and enabling development that spreads from a focal point to the wider area.

02 Feasible Industrial Planning

Ultimately, a new district’s development potential depends on its own economic self-sustaining capacity. Most new districts boast grand and ambitious plans, but their industrial strategies are often unrealistic and simply cannot be implemented.

Without forward-looking industrial planning, they proceed haphazardly, with no clear vision of how to execute their plans. The end result is that these plans are merely drawn up on a whim, only to be hung on the wall.

03 Alignment with Urban Development Principles

Every city’s outward expansion follows its own objective laws—a comprehensive outcome shaped by thorough consideration of supporting infrastructure, costs, and resource endowments. Many regions churn out new concepts—High-Speed Rail New Towns, High-Tech Zones, Airport New Towns—without proper planning.

Among these, high-speed rail is a classic example of “quick in, quick out”—it fails to generate agglomeration effects and may even create a reverse “siphoning” effect, drawing resources away to other cities with comparative advantages.

New towns and development projects are like lakes and fish.

A well-developed new town is akin to the deep waters of a lake; the larger the fish, the more they prefer to inhabit these depths. Conversely, the closer one gets to the shore, the shallower the water becomes, and the smaller the fish that can be accommodated.

Of course, there are indeed some fish that come to the shallows to evade predators. However, for the shallows, this “arrival” is passive and by no means inevitable, because whether for large or small fish, deeper water is always safer.

If the shallow water area wants to thrive, it must abandon the “deep water model” of competition and instead find a unique model that suits its inherent characteristics.

For example, find ways to attract amphibians that prefer shallow waters; see if there are any waterbirds that like to live here. Or perhaps consider abandoning the “competition for water” and instead develop a “wetland” model…

Therefore, the key to attracting investment lies in “distinctiveness”: should the focus be on biopharmaceuticals, new energy, new materials, or smart equipment manufacturing? This process requires unwavering commitment and significant effort in industrial research and resource aggregation.

Practice Reveals Truth

Today, with abundant information and convenient social networking, “resources” have become a “priced-to-order” commodity. In investment circles, it’s common to encounter people who use the amount of resources they possess as a catchphrase or a bargaining chip.

How do you verify that the other party actually has resources? Are those resources genuine? What about valuable leads?

Let’s start with an event.

There is nothing that an event cannot verify. If there is, then organize another one.

Previously, a certain business tycoon claimed to have connections with CCTV, various development foundations, and over 4,000 media outlets. It was said that his investment firm could secure funding for projects, incubate various enterprises, and provide a wide range of services to companies.

Hmm... no problem. Let’s organize a “Health Industry” matchmaking event—essentially an investment promotion conference.

In the lead-up, we prepared materials and handled promotions. When people signed up, our own people made up half the crowd—less than forty people in total.

The event arrived as scheduled. The venue, designed for 80 people, was sparsely filled with about 30 attendees. Unexpectedly, the attendees were a motley crew—bird’s nest sellers and health supplement vendors—all somehow lumped into the “big health” category.

Needless to say, what kind of investment results could we possibly expect?

Then there were the Shanghai Business Conferences and salons, which claimed to help attract companies. At these events, people with all sorts of titles and from all kinds of businesses would still have to wave the banner of “incubation.”

There were quite a few people, so it seemed legitimate enough. Unexpectedly, two deals were actually closed—membership fees of nearly 10,000 yuan.

After organizing seven or eight such events, not a single company ended up moving in. Instead, we attracted several so-called “experts” who were just selling “connections,” and the events ultimately ended in acrimony…

Remember, when it comes to investment promotion, don’t listen to all that big talk—it’s mostly just a scam…

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