According to Jiujiang Daily published on 30 November, Jiangxi provincial government is going all out to help build Jiujiang’s Gongqingcheng (Youth City) into China’s new production centre for mobile phones. A recent industrial conference hosted by the provincial government attracted 10 projects worth a total contracted value of Rmb2.8bn. This was followed by a fact-finding mission to the city comprising more than 50 mobile phone manufacturers from Shenzhen. A number of new projects are being negotiated.

In July this year Cellon, the mobile technology provider, agreed to set up a Rmb1.2bn production base in Jiujiang that includes an R&D centre, testing and assembly lines. The project will be built in two phases and is expected to generate annual sales of Rmb4bn by 2011 and Rmb10bn by 2012. Cellon started as a spin-off of Philips’ mobile phone European R&D centre. It now counts among its customers Vodafone, the world’s largest mobile telecom company by revenues, and China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile telecom company by subscribers.

Youth City is a suburb of Jiujiang situated on Poyang Lake, China’s largest freshwater lake in northern Jiangxi and a major Yangtze tributary on its southern bank. Originally called Tuogou Valley in De’an county, Youth City was started by a group of 98 Shanghai youngsters in October 1955 when they came to the area to be ‘educated by farmers’. They cultivated the deserted land and built huts for shelter. The late Communist Party Secretary Hu Yaobang, who was then chairman of the National Youth League, visited them at the end of the year when he named the place ‘Youth Commune’ and encouraged the youngsters to turn the commune into a ‘little Shanghai’. In the 1960s, the commune exported ducks to Hong Kong. In the following decade, the Youth City as it then became known was China’s largest production base for down garments; today the brand ‘Ducklings’ (Yaya) is a household name. The late Mr Hu chose to be buried here in 1990.