Another sector that has attracted big investors in Zhanjiang is the papermaking sector.

Chenming Group, one of the leading papermakers in China, began to invest in its Zhanjiang plant in 2009.

Since then, Chenming has invested a total of 26.5 billion yuan in building four production lines.

The plant currently covers more than 200 hectares and has about 4,000 employees.

Last year, Chenming's Zhanjiang facility produced 1.85 million tons of paper. Its output value and net profit reached 13.5 billion yuan and 1.3 billion yuan.

The huge projects have helped to form three pillar industries in Zhanjiang, giving a strong boost to the local economy.

In 2017, the three pillar sectors of steel, petrochemicals and papermaking yielded a total output value of 109 billion yuan, growing 16.8 percent and accounting for 40.6 percent of the city's total industrial output value, according to local statistics.

In 2018, the three sectors' output value totaled 112.5 billion yuan, accounting for 47.4 percent of the city's total industrial output value.

In the first half of this year, the output value of the three sectors reached 54.7 billion yuan, accounting for 48.4 percent of Zhanjiang's total.

Chen Hongwen, a researcher at Zhanjiang Party School, said investments from leading domestic and foreign companies will help upgrade local industries to a higher level.

"We noticed that, driven by the big, advanced industrial projects, many local enterprises have grown toward the direction of higher added value, higher tech content and larger scale," Chen explained.

With a number of deepwater harbors, Zhanjiang is an important shipping hub in China.Li Bo/for China Daily