Located in the southeast of Jilin Province and the center of the Changbai Mountain area, Baishan City is on the border with North Korea on the other side of the Yalu river. The border line is 458.1 km in the city. It governs Hunjiang District, Jiangyuan District, Linjiang City, Fusong County, Jingyu County and Changbai Korean Autonomous County, with a total area of 17485 square km and a population of 1.3 million.
Baishan City is in the core area of the forest ecologic system in Changbai Mountain, and has long been praised as “the treasure house of three-dimensional resources”. As a well known city of rich resources, 83.2% of the city is covered by forest, and the storage of live stumpage is 187 million cubic meters, with the storage per capita of 144 cubic meters, which is 12.5 times the nation’s average amount. In the area, there are 3 rivers such as Yalu River, Songhua River and Hunjiang River, with a power storage of 2.8 million kw theoretically. As a world-famous city of international mineral spring: the city is full of quality natural mineral water with abundant storage, and 130 sites have been discovered, with a daily flow of 230,000 cubic meters; and the annual maximum allowable exploitation quantity is 84 million cubic meters, with a potential economic value of more than 200 billion yuan. As an ecologic tourism city of forests: The tourism resources around Changbai Mountain, Yalu River and Songhua River are extremely rich, for example, there are historical as well as tourism sites such as Guoling Tower of Ancient Bohai State, the national mine park of Banshi, the former meeting place of Qidaojiang, the memorial hall of Sibao Linjiang, the former home of Chenyun, etc. And cross-border tour between China and North Korea is distinguishing. It is also the first city of all-forest tourism in the country and one of China’s 10 ecologic tourism cities. As a city of green food and specialty: Baishan is the hometown of Northeast China’s famous “three treasures”, where there are more than 350 species of wild animals, and more than 2300 wild plants. The city is also a world famous production place for Chinese ginseng, American ginseng, Herba Rhodiolae, schisandra chinensis, wood frog, black agaric, blueberry, and Songhua stone. It is named by the Chinese Green Food Association and Chinese Committee of Specialty Recommendation as a famous city of green food and a famous city of specialty.
The biggest tourism investment project of China: The International Holiday Resort of Changbai Mountain started to open splendidly by the end of July, 2012, which makes Baishan a world-class holiday resort of leisure and tourism. Our next goal is to make it as well-known as Boao in Hainan and Davos in Switzerland. We are working hard on constructing “three bases”, the first one is to build a significant base of energy resources in Northeast China, based on the coal with the electric power as the core, coupled with the clean energy, and to expand thermal power, water power, wind power, biomass, photovoltaic power, and an energy industrial cluster is thus built. The second one is to form a production base of mineral metallurgy industry. We would keep protecting and cultivating strategic projects with high benefits and large scale, and build a significant chain of industries that connect mineral metallurgy industry to extend the range of business, and our key projects are oxidized palletizing, diatomite, silicon and magnesium industrial park, etc. By 2015, the mineral metallurgy industry will realize an increased value accounting for 10% of the city’s total GDP. The third one is to build a wood processing base of Jilin Province. We stick to paying equal attention to the ecology protection and forest development, making great effort to develop deep processing of wood, so as to realize a transition from extensive operation to precision management, to make a change from the primary products to advanced ones. By 2015, the capacity of wood composite floor will reach 27 million square meters, artificial floor of 1 million cubic meters, and 500,000 pieces (suits) of furniture, and the increased value of forest industry will make 7% GDP of the city. Moreover, we are going to build “three famous cities”, the first one is to build an international city of mineral spring. By implementing the strategy of controlling resource consuming, publicizing brand names, expanding quantity, we will promote some projects of high-end mineral water. By 2015, the capacity of mineral drinks will reach 10 million tons, the value of middle and high end mineral drink will make more than 50%, the added value of mineral water will account for 6.5% of the city GDP. The second one is to build an international city of ecologic tourism. Highlighting the four themes of “relying on the mountain, traveling along the river, surrounding the city and going transnational”, we promote the integrative development of tourism and culture, develop 4 quality tour routes of landscape leisure, ice and snow entertainment, hot spring holiday and red tourism, mainly focusing on the construction of tourism projects such as the international holiday resort of Changbai Mountain, Hot spring city of Fairy Bridge and the scenic pot of Observing Swans. By 2015, the tourists are expected to reach 10 million people, and the tourism income will make over 10% of the city GDP. The third one is to build a famous city of specialty in China. We are going to improve the ginseng industry radically, speed up the base construction, focus on fine processing, and emphasize producing ginseng related food, medicine, health product and cosmetics. By 2015, the deep processing of ginseng in the city will make over 50%, and the increased value of medicine industry will account for 6.5% of the city GDP. By expanding the special agricultural industries, and promoting the “green and pollution-free” agriculture, implementing the standardized production and scale operation, focusing on the construction of special agricultural projects such as edible fungus and products of special cultivation, we are able to form an industry cluster of Changbai Mountain with mountain food and special agricultural products. By 2015, the increased value of the special agricultural products will make 6.5% of the city GDP. We plan to build “two centers”. Firstly, we will build a modern logistics center of east Jilin. The projects include setting up two transnational trade zones of Changbai and Linjiang dealing business with North Korea, and constructing an inland port of Laoying and a logistic industrial zone of Jinyu. By 2015, the increased value of the logistic industry will make over 6% of the city GDP. The other plan is to build a creative culture center of Changbai Mountain. We will develop a cultural base of producing Songhua Ink Stone of China with a key project on the construction of a cultural park of Songhua Stone, promoting tourism, performance, fair and exhibition, etc., so that a cluster of cultural creative industries will be formed. By 2015, we are going to build 3-5 culture creative industrial clusters and 1 stone culture city, thus to make it the regional culture center of east Jilin.
Baishan has now become the important district which attracts not only the business from home and abroad, but also attracts attention of the world and gradually becomes a fortune place and a hot land for investment, development, and wealth.