The Nanhai National Pilot Ecological Industrial Park is the first park designed in accordance with the concepts of the "resources-products-recycled resources" pattern, compared with the traditional "resources-products-waste" pattern, officials said.

Guided by the new ideas, this new ecological industrial park aims to use the byproducts from one factory as raw materials for another, thus keeping factory pollution and waste to a minimum.

With a total investment of 26.5 billion yuan (US$319 million) and covering cover an area of 333 hectares, the park is expected to serve as a model for the eco-environmental protection in the process of fast economic development in China.

To date, 56 enterprises from the United States, Canada, Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan have signed contracts with the park, and a total of 29 projects have been completed or are being built.

(Xinhua News Agency March 31, 2003)