This was the remark made by Wu Kaili, deputy director of the Guangdong Economic and Trade Committee, who leads a delegation to the on-going Sixth Investment and Trade Forum for Cooperation between East and West China.

"I do not think funds are needed most to promote economic development in the western regions of the country, but market management and new thinkings," Wu said in Xi'an, capital of Northwest China's Shaanxi Province.

"Western regions pay too much attention to money than other kinds of 'investment,' like Guangdong did in the early 1980s. Now we should make more efforts to establish a market, and only when the investors' products are sold well, will the investment continue to flow in."

Guangdong, an economically booming province in South China, plans to send a trade delegation to western regions to look for products which can be profitable in overseas markets, and, in turn, help promote economic development in western regions, the deputy director said.

"Western regions should establish a sense that selling leads to investment, and circulation promotes production, and understand where there is no market there is no investment," Wu said.

Fan Boyuan, director of the Beijing Science and Technology Committee, who attended the forum, also encouraged enterprises in the west to take part in large construction projects in Beijing to make full use of their advantages and promote western development.

"For instance, Beijing will host the 2008 Olympic Games, and we want to make it a scientific one," Fan said. "Shaanxi has achieved a large number of scientific research results, which will greatly help Beijing in preparation for the Games."

In fact, eastern regions have made great use of scientific achievements made in the west.

(China Daily April 10, 2002)