Changshu Economic Development Zone (CEDZ) representatives recently visited my office to offer an update on the latest developments in their investment area. Much of the changes are in infrastructure, which will be an increasingly important story over the next five years as regions tucked away from the mainstream of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) benefit from the addition of highways and bridges where before there were only country roads and barges. Vice Director Jennifer Qi explained to me that the completion of the Changshu portion of the Sujiahang Expressway decreased driving time between Suzhou and Changshu from 1-1/2 hours to 45 minutes. “Nearly 100 foreign managers live in Suzhou have their factories in Changshu. They are very happy about the completion. Before, they kept asking us when the highway will be complete, especially when there were some delays. Now it is easier for them to go between the two cities.”

I first went to CEDZ more than five years ago. Back then, it was little developed: Suzhou was absorbing much of the investment alternatives beyond Shanghai. Vice Director Qi politely reminded me that was when she and I had first met. I had forgotten. However forgetful I might have been though, the Vice Director and her colleagues have been capitalizing on the city’s location on the Yangtze River to develop the investment zone as an industrial center for: automobile parts, precision machinery, logistics/warehousing and equipment manufacturing. Originally a provincial level zone, the Central Government upgraded the Zone to State level.

Despite a rapid rise in investment activity in the Zone the last couple years, nearly 40% of the area’s land – or 40 square km – remains available for development. The area’s Export Processing Zone (EPZ) is a 1 square kilometer plot of land with nearly half the fence-in property still available for development. The Zone in general still has a number of single-floor workshops available for leasing, ranging in size from 3,200 square meters to 6,000 square meters.

Interestingly, Changshu does not lay on any major rail lines; highway and river are the main modes of transportation. Railway construction to the city begins in 2009, and should end in 2011, when a high-speed train will be inaugurated.

I was glad to hear Changshu has no interest in developing itself as the next IT hub, as so many third- and fourth-tier cities are fashionably styling themselves to become. Ms. Qi said, “We have no intention to focus on IT. We don’t think our over-all condition is suited to IT. We do not have enough high-tech graduates, and we are situated on a natural river port.”

Truer words could not have been spoken by any government official.