Both frontier towns aspire to something better. A deserted marketing suite just inside Laos features plans for a cross-border golf course. In Mohan work has already started on “Fortune Plaza”, a 22,000-square-metre (237,000-square foot) site with bars, shops, HOTELS and offices. Regional and national leaders have even grander visions for the south-western province of Yunnan, of which Mohan is part, because it shares 4,000km (2,500 miles) of borders with Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. They want it to be the hub of an economic take-off in South-East Asia. The challenge is great: an underdeveloped part of China will need to lift some of Asia’s poorest and most unstable countries with it.
Yunnan has a prosperous past. Around 2,000 years ago people in south-west China traded tea and other goods across thousands of miles to Europe. These days the province is something of a backwater, albeit a beautiful one. Only two of China’s 31 provinces have a lower GDP per person. The gap between rural and urban incomes is among the largest in the country. Far from Beijing and the wealthy eastern seaboard, Yunnan is often seen as a dead end. Its dramatic scenery is a huge asset in its drive to boost tourism, but the rugged terrain hampers development. Its other economic pillars—mining and tobacco—are dominated by state-owned companies. Private INVESTMENT is low
Both frontier towns aspire to something better. A deserted marketing suite just inside Laos features plans for a cross-border golf course. In Mohan work has already started on “Fortune Plaza”, a 22,000-square-metre (237,000-square foot) site with bars, shops, HOTELS and offices. Regional and national leaders have even grander visions for the south-western province of Yunnan, of which Mohan is part, because it shares 4,000km (2,500 miles) of borders with Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. They want it to be the hub of an economic take-off in South-East Asia. The challenge is great: an underdeveloped part of China will need to lift some of Asia’s poorest and most unstable countries with it.
Yunnan has a prosperous past. Around 2,000 years ago people in south-west China traded tea and other goods across thousands of miles to Europe. These days the province is something of a backwater, albeit a beautiful one. Only two of China’s 31 provinces have a lower GDP per person. The gap between rural and urban incomes is among the largest in the country. Far from Beijing and the wealthy eastern seaboard, Yunnan is often seen as a dead end. Its dramatic scenery is a huge asset in its drive to boost tourism, but the rugged terrain hampers development. Its other economic pillars—mining and tobacco—are dominated by state-owned companies. Private INVESTMENT is low
การแปล กรุณารอสักครู่..
