Honorable guests:

Suzhou is a both ancient and modern city located in east of China and by the bank of the Yangtze River. It lies in the south of Jiangsu Province and is adjacent to Shanghai (the position of Suzhou: 120.37°E, 31.19°N, 80km to Shanghai) covering an area of 8488 square km with a population of 6.24 million.

Suzhou has a history and culture of up to 2,500 years long and is well-known in the world for its classical gardens and picturesque scenery. Now the city is still located in its original site of the Spring and Autumn Period and basically maintains the double chessboard structure featuring and “land and water ways in parallel while the rivers and streets close together” as well as the simple and elegant scene of “small bridges, flowing water and households”. Its beauty can be described as “picturesque scenery from either close or distant observation while also full of charms when looking either up or down”. Nine classical gardens of the city that have been listed in World Heritage List by UNESCO and the city has one oral and
intangible heritage.

With more than 20 years of reform and opening up to the outside world, Suzhou now is full of vigor and vitality with the ancient charms and modern flavor reflecting the glamour of harmony. In the past 5 years, the economic aggregate and overall strength of Suzhou has leaped forward to the top of large and medium size cities of the country: its GDP realizing an annual average growth of above 15%, industrial production value 25% and its local fiscal revenue 30%. In 2004, Suzhou was selected as one of the “Ten Cities with Most Dynamic Economy of China”; in 2006, Suzhou was selected as the top of “Cities with Best Investment Environment in China” and all its five county-level cities have become the top ten of “Top 100 Counties (Cities) of Overall Strength in China”.

Today’s Suzhou is an important central city of the Yangtze River Delta region in China. In 2007 it realized a local total output value of 570 billion Yuan, increasing by 16% comparing with last year. The local per capita total output value reached over USD$12,000, which is 6 times of the average level in mainland China.
Today’s Suzhou is an open city and its open economy ranks the top of all the large and medium size cities of China: in 2007 the total amount of import and export of the city reached USD$211.8 billion, ranking the third place; the foreign investment in actual use reached USD$7.16 billion, ranking the second place; the contracted foreign investment reached USD$18.36 billion, ranking the first place of the country.

Today’s Suzhou has been one of the first choices in China mainland for international business investors. Now the city gathers nearly as many as 20,000 foreign funded enterprises and 122 of the 500 top enterprises have invested in Suzhou. Today’s Suzhou is a newly rising technology city of mainland China with advanced electronic information industry growing above 40% annually in average. In 2007 the sales income of the electronic information industry reached 497 billion Yuan and the software industry output value exceeded 20 billion Yuan. The city has been nominated as “State-level Information Industry Base” and “Software Industry Base”.

Today’s Suzhou is a city with the development of modern service industry in the ascendant. In 2006 the total output value of the service industry reached 197 billion Yuan. Modern logistics, tourism industry, business and trade industry and service outsourcing industry has been developing rapidly.
The development of the service outsourcing industry in Suzhou city has had an initial basis and gradually formed a concentration area of service outsourcing industry with industrial parks, new district, Kunshan city, Taicang city and other areas as important carriers. The service outsourcing industry covers many fields, including software, cartoon, modern logistics, finance services, financial affairs services, human resources services and so on. In 2007 the total business income of the service outsourcing industry reached up to USD$300 million.

At the moment, the economy of Suzhou is witnessing rapid and healthy development, with the hi-tech industry, modern service industry and international service outsourcing industry advancing by leaps and bounds. Development embodies opportunities, contains great potentials and means greater space for cooperation. Considering this, Suzhou Municipal People’s Government will hold “Matchmaking Meeting for Suzhou International Service Outsourcing Development Forum & Service Outsourcing Industry” from May 7 to 8 of 2008. We sincerely welcome your company/organization to send top management personnel to visit Suzhou and participate in this grand gathering to see about the development environment of our city and at the same time to jointly seek for cooperation opportunities, jointly discuss major cooperation programs and jointly plan for mutual development.

Suzhou Municipal People’s Government of China
Feb 20 , 2008