As to the whole country, in the Yellow River Delta, the loss of cloning the economic mode of the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta on the sacrifice of the precious ecologic environment outweighs the gain. But,swheresis the new evaluation criterion?

　　You can not find any city similar with Dongying on earth. It is encircled by the Yellow River Delta, with the famous Shengli Petroleum Field as its matrix, so it is called a resource city. But the richest resource is not petroleum-petroleum will dry up one day-it is the special feature of the land.

　　The Yellow River Delta is a new land camesintosbeing in the past hundreds of years. Together with the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta, they are called the three largest Deltas in China. Comparing the other two, there are not continuous cities here, but there are incult lands and multifarious wild animals besides the bristly oil derricks. Therefore, it is an everglade, which attracts much attention from international organizations and other countries. Moreover, the Yellow River continues to enlarge the Delta at a rate of 3,200 hectare per year and the acreage of Dongying is enlarging accordingly.

　　The original thought of the establishment of Dongying City was to let the over-ground serves for the underground, that is, the function of the city must be submitted to the construction of the oil field nearby. Even up till now, Dongying is one of the wealthiest places in Shandong Province: The city's per capita Gross National Product, per capita financial revenue, per capita income of urban residents, per capita saving deposit and per capita consumption level rank first in Shandong Province. But the dualistic petroleum and agriculture economy cannot be continued for sustainable development. Petroleum would definitely dry up one day. There have been arguments about the heading of the Yellow River Delta's development since the 1980s, while this is just the period in which the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta develop at the top speed.

　　The exploitation of the Yellow River Delta had not been paid attention until the end of last century. In the past two years, the development and construction of the Yellow River Delta has attracted the worldwide attention and support. Shandong Province has ranked it as one of the two Trans-century Projects(the other one is Marine Shandong and determined to build Dongyingsintosan important base of energy, chemical industry, and agriculture, animal husbandry and fishery as well as a modern petroleum port city. The State has listed the development and construction of the Yellow River Delta in its Tenth Five-Year Plan (2001-2005). The State Council has approved Dongying City as a coastal economic zone open to the outside world, an agricultural comprehensive development zone as well as a national level ecological demonstration area, and included the resources development and the environmental protection of the Yellow River Delta area in the plan of the priority projects for Agenda 21 of China. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) has supported and implemented the project for the Construction and Development of the Yellow River Delta as the first priority project for supporting "Agenda 21 of China", and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization has also signed an agreement with Dongying City for full supporting the city's development. The aim of Shandong Province, the state and UN is to make the Yellow River Delta a developed area in which population, economy, resources and environment could develop harmoniously. The Yellow River Delta hopes to catch up with the other two Deltas in the future.

　　The financing of the development of the Yellow River Delta mainly comes from the government, inte rnational assistance and loan, inviting the outside investment and the input of Shengli Petroleum Field. In recent years, the State has been steadily increasing investment in Dongying to quicken the city's infrastructures construction. In 2000, Dongying has successfully absorbed 6.12 billion yuan (US million) of domestic and foreign fixed-asset investment. They hope that along with the implementation of the State's Tenth Five-Year Plan, the Yellow River Delta will become another hot spot for economic development following the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta. But except the governments input, all the other money sources are not jarless.

　　The Provincial Government holds special work, meetings each year and gives support in projects and investment, etc for the construction and development of the Yellow River Delta. Every year at this time, the cities in the Delta will contest on the items and capital. Dongying thinks it is the only city in the Yellow River Delta, while Binzhou thinks it should also be included in the Delta; at the same time, Dezhou thinks two of its counties are also in the Delta. Therefore, for such a large area, the investment is just like trying to put out a blazing cartload of faggots with a cup of water. Many people are afraid that the trans-century project may trans another century.

　　The Yellow River Delta was sleeping soundly when the other two Deltas were developing very fast. When he woke up, he found that the emphasis of the national exploitation had been transferred to the western area. In such circumstances, Dongying began to invite the outside investments, which they took as the major magic weapon.

　　In fact, only by inviting the outside investment cannot shorten the distance

　　between the Yellow River Delta and the other two Deltas, on the contrary, the distance maybe enlarged. So, some experts suggested the country should take out 15 per cent from the taxes Shengli Petroleum Field actually turn in every year and give them back to the Yellow River Delta in form of fiscal transfer payment.

　　One bottleneck of The Yellow River Delta is the pinch of water resources. The Yellow River flows 180 kilometres through Dongying City with an annual average runoff reaching 30 billion cubic meters. But the flux of the Yellow River Delta is not steady; the water supply of the Yellow River cannot be counted on. Therefore, many irrigation and water conservancy works were established in the area to conserve water in rainy seasons. Dongying city has constructed 57 large-sized reservoirs with a storage capacity of 740 million cubic meters. They hope the reservoirs could provide abundant fresh water resources to ensure a reliable guarantee for industrial and agricultural production as well as people's daily life. Without water, the production of oil cannot be continued, not to say the development of the economy.

　　Everglades contributes much to the protection of environment, but the everglades in China are decreasing. The everglade in the Yellow River Delta cannot survive as well. The Yellow River Delta should be treated as Public goods of the whole country and arrange the exploitation and environment protection according to this conception. Should the Yellow River Delta clone the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta? While evaluating the development of the Yellow River Delta, we should take the environment protection and zoology promotionsintosconsideration; the going up of economy is just one important criterion.

　　A Profile of Dongying City

　　Dongying City, founded in October, 1983, is a prefecture-level city under the jurisdiction of the Shandong provincial government. Dongying City covers an area of 8,053 square kilometres, including two districts and three counties, and has a total population of 1.7 million. Dongying is a center city on the Yellow River Delta.

　　Located in the north of Shandong Province, facing the Bohai Sea, close to Bejing-Tianjin-Tanggu Economic Zone on the north and linking with Shandong Peninsula Economic Zone on the south, Dongying is the crossing point of the Bohai-Rim Area and the Yellow-River Valley Economic Belt, and it is also the important sea and land thoroughfare between the two large economic zones of the Northeast and the Central Plain. Here is the locationswheresthe Yellow River emptiessintosthe sea andswheresShengli Oilfield, China's second largest oilfield, and the University of Petroleum, the highest institute of higher learning in the system of petroleum, are situated. Eighty per cent of the oil in place and 85% of the oil production of the Shengli Oilfield are concentrated within the territory of Dongying City.

　　The city has a total land area of 800,000 hectares. At the same time, the Yellow River creates 2,000 hectares of new land each year, making this area have the most available land resources in the east coastal area of China. With a total coastline of 350 kilometres and 4,800 square kilometres of offshore area within the isobath of minus 10 metres, the city has abundant marine resources and diversified biology.

　　Through development of many years, a diversified industrial system mainly including petroleum and petrochemical, salt and salt-chemical, machinery, paper-making, building materials, light and textile, agricultural and sideline products processing industries has been established in the city. There are altogether more than 2,000 varieties of industrial products in 45 major categories. And it has become the largest base in the north of China at the present time for production of plastic building materials and pipes. With strong technical force, a team consisting of technical personnel in various fields has formed in Dongying City.

　　The highways in Dongying City radiate in all directions. The mileage in highway open to traffic reaches over 4,800 kilometres, and the highway density is 59 kilometres per 100 square kilometres. Dongying-Qingdao Expressway, connecting with Ji-Qing Expressway (Jinan-Qingdao), is the strategic passage between Jiaodong Peninsular and Tianjin and Beijing. The planned Bohai-Rim Expressway will link with Tianjin-Beijing Expressway, and after its completion, it will take only more than 3 hours to drive to Beijing from Dongying. Dongying Railway connects in the south with Qingdao-Jinan Railway and links up with the main artery Beijing-Shanghai Railway.

　　And with abundant and diversified agricultural products including grain and cotton, animal husbandry products, aquatic products, melon and vegetables, flowers and plants, silkworm as well as forest and fruits, etc, the city is the country's grain production base. Dongying Port is one of the country's first-class ports open to both foreign and domestic vessels. An expressway leading to the port has been built, and one 5,000-tonner berth and five 3,000-tonner berths have been built in the port. At present, a 20,000-tonner dock is under construction. The construction of the basic facilities for Dongying Airport such as airstrip, taxiway and parking apron has been completed. With complete aerial navigation equipment, the airport may be putsintosservice after the airport lounge is constructed and the auxiliary facilities are equipped.

　　Dongying City is the centre city of the Yellow River Delta. ?An expert mission organized by the State made a detailed investigation to Dongying and put up systematic suggestions on the development and construction of the Yellow River Delta. The suggestions were submitted to the State Council with the approval of the State's 9 ministries and commissions.

　　Dongying City attaches great importance to environmental and legality building and has good soft investment environment. Since last year, the city has been implementing the strategy of "wide opening, large-scale investment absorbing and big development" in an all-round way and great efforts have been made to create a "three excellences" environment for domestic and foreign investors. First, implementing the most preferential policies. The second is to offer quality services for both domestic and foreign investors. The third is to create the most excellent order. The city has established the Complaint Centre for Outside Investors, which has person on duty for 24 hours a day. Investors may complain their dissatisfaction at any time. Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd. came to make investment in Dongying mainly because the company is satisfied with the city's excellent investment environment.

　　AN EPITOME OF DONGYING

　　Where the Yellow River flowssintosthe sea.

　　An urban environment characterized by large patches of green grassland, water surfaces and green space.

　　Ranking among the best medium and large cites in China in terms of per capita GDP

　　The Chinese government chooses the Yellow River Delta to develop the highly effective ecoeconomy.

　　An important production base for green products.

　　A city with concentrated scientific research and technological personnel in Shandong Province.

　　One of the richest large river deltas abounding in natural resources in the world.

　　The home for China's second largest oil production base,the Shengli Oilfield.

　　Diversified Industrial systems.

　　The newest land of the Republic.

　　The most important natural reserve for wetland worldwide.

　　One of the two Trans-century projects in Shandong Province.

　　A coastal region on east China in heat of investment.

　　A new economic zone with prosperous economy and fine environment.