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Economic Impacts
The Wujin-Taihu Bay Holiday Resort project will significantly contribute to raising income levels and increasing employment opportunities in the area, thereby assisting in poverty alleviation, and will position tourism as a major economic activity in the area contributing to improved quality of life of the population concerned. There will also be a significant shift from traditional primary sector farming and fishing activities to modern salaried employment in the tertiary service sector.
It is estimated that, by 2020, when the project development will be completed, 16,200 direct jobs (direct and indirect employment effects are shown in Table 7.3 on page 24) will have been created by the Resort, i.e.: 3000 in excess of the totality of today's local population. Based on the population profile given above, it may be estimated that, out of the 9400 active persons of working age now leaving in the area, between 3000-to-6000 may find employment in the newly created tourist activities. This will still leave from 10000-to-13000 jobs to be filled by workers coming from outside the project area. Some of these workers will want to live near their employment place, thus significantly increasing housing demand as well as demand for other social services, notably schools. Total annual salaries paid to resort workers may be estimated at $US20 to $US25 million, of which a great part will be spent locally generating a second round of economic effects.
Employment creation, notably in the construction industry, will start well before the Resort becomes operational in 2008-2009, thus the first economic effects will be felt much sooner, as soon as the resort development gets under way.
The overall effect of the proposed tourism development is illustrated below. It is expected that the number of tourist days will increase by an average of 9.3 % per year; the income and foreign expenditure effect will increase by an annual increase of 16.1% and 25.3% respectively.
|
2010 |
2015 |
2020 |
Annual Growth Rate %
2010 to 2020 |
Total No. of Visitor Days (Mill.) |
2.40 |
3.45 |
5.85 |
9.30 |
Income Generation Bill. RMB |
1.50 |
3.00 |
6.70 |
16.10 |
Foreign Currency Mill. USD |
29.30 |
89.40 |
280.00 |
25.30 |
Economic Impact of the Proposed Tourism Development
| Based on these projections as well as the projections made by the City of Changzhou, the proposed project will make up 0.6% of the tourism income for 2010 increasing to 1.2% of the projected tourism income for Changzhou City by year 2020. Although these figures might seem relatively small, it is found that the project, for the first time, will place Changzhou City on the tourism map not only of the Yangtze River Delta but also of China.
It is thus expected that the project will have major investment and economic impact effects for the City of Changzhou. For Wujin District the Project will have strong impact and tourism will for the first time be a pillar industry for the District. By year 2020 tourism will through the proposed project be a pillar industry not only for Wujin District but also for Changzhou City and the Project will have major implications for Jiangsu Province.
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