As a national central city, Chengdu in Sichuan province is building a modern industrial system that aims to become internationally competitive and play a leading role in regional development.

As one of Chengdu's five pillar sectors, the automobile industry has attracted a number of market leaders to invest in the city.

Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, a major new energy vehicle manufacturer, signed investment deals with the administrative committee of Chengdu's Jianzhou New Town in mid-September.

The area is home to advanced manufacturing industries.

The Zhejiang province-headquartered company pledged to invest a total of 30 billion yuan ($4.5 billion) to build a university, an auto culture-themed town and an industrial park focusing on the advanced components used in new energy vehicles. The themed town will include an automobile exhibition park and various race tracks.

The industrial park will be able to produce 400,000 engines and 600,000 dualclutch transmissions a year after it is completed.

The parts will be exported to Southeast Asia, Russia and Eastern Europe. The new school will house 25,000 undergraduates, combining education and industry, focusing on industrial design, and research and development.

Also in September, Jianzhou New Town's neighbor, Longchengyi district also reaped a harvest. It attracted a series of large investment projects funded by companies from other provinces, including automakers FAW Group and Geely, and telecommunications company Phicomm (Shanghai).

One of the investments is a 6 billion yuan new energy vehicle project, which will be able to expand the current annual output to 10,000 cars.

IAT Automobile Technology pumped 2.7 billion yuan into its new energy vehicle project in the district, creating an annual production capacity of 100,000 autos.

As Chengdu's auto manufacturing hub, Longquanyi district has drawn 11 automakers to base operations there, including FAW-Volkswagen, FAW Toyota, Dongfeng Peugeot Citroen, Volvo and Geely.

The household names have helped the district to achieve an annual production capacity of 1.4 million vehicles.

Annual output is projected to top 3 million vehicles by 2021, according to the local government.

"Our daily shipment of autos has topped 1,000 units," said Wu Zheng, Party chief of Dongfeng Peugeot Citroen's Chengdu plant.

Since the plant was put into operation, three locally made models - the Peugeot 4008 and 5008, and Citroen - have seen a total of 50,000 units roll out of the Longquanyi facility to dealerships across the country.

New tracks

Rail transportation is another pillar of the city's expanding economy.