Major and promising projects with strong supporting capacity and driving force are the “leaders” in local high-quality development, and have always been much sought-after in regional competition. Although such leading projects can generate high returns, they are generally too highflying to be recruited unless there is a one-upmanship.

Major projects drive leapfrog development. Securing a major project means an industry chain activated, a new industry enabled, and a new base shaped. It is a valuable experience of many areas to outrace others. Actually, it is not easy to attract promising projects. These so-called major projects are generally technologically sophisticated and highly potential, and are able to promote high-quality development. Most of them are technology-intensive or capital-intensive. Therefore, it would take extra efforts, or “clever moves” and alike, in fund supporting and talent recruitment to appeal them.

One-upmanships call for superior strategic insights and more courage. To tell whether a new project is promising or investable, accurate judgments, on industrial development trend, the direction of technology upgrading and the market outlook of products, are vital and essential. This is indeed a challenging work. Lots of practices have proven that few major projects can sail right before the wind. Challenges need to be addressed carefully one by one, such as how to effectively avoid risks while raising funds, how to break through bottlenecks in environmental capacity, how to innovate in land supply, and how to achieve precise government services, commercialization of research findings, and sound facility for industrial clusters. All these are just a test of insights, ability, and courage.

The key of one-upmanship largely lies on leaders and officials. The provincial Party committee has reiterated that leaders and officials at all levels, especially major ones, should be the forerunners in creating an enabling business environment and held immediately responsible for the work of investment promotion and talent attraction. Leaders and officials should take the lead in project implementation, playing their part in planning priorities research, important matters, key project links and major problems. Some new, practical and forceful measures should be adopted to improve leadership coordination, make institutional innovations, increase work force and allocate resources for promoting major and promising projects. With leaders setting examples and gathering strength, we are confident to blaze a new way and open up new prospects in project development.