CHONGQING - Chinese Vice-Premier Zhang Dejiang, newly appointed Party chief of Chongqing, has promised unremitting efforts to consolidate the municipality's role as a global leader in information technology.

Zhang told visiting Acer President Jim Wong on Wednesday that Chongqing would ensure "continuity and stability in its reform and opening-up policies" so as to make the drive.

Zhang was appointed Party chief of Chongqing, replacing Bo Xilai, under a decision by the Communist Party of China Central Committee last Thursday.

"Chongqing will diversify and optimize its policies to improve its opening-up," Zhang said, while emphasizing the importance of upgrading vocational and technical education to train high-quality professionals for foreign-funded IT firms in Chongqing.

Wong and hundreds of other senior executives from the world's leading IT firms including Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Intel have gathered in Chongqing to attend the China International Expo of Cloud Computing, which opened here Thursday.

The three-day event features symposiums and exhibitions of new IT technology, products and services.

Wong said Zhang's reassurance helped enhance investors' confidence.

He said the company plans to build Acer's manufacturing base in Chongqing into the world's largest communication technology research and manufacturing center in two to three years.

Taiwan-based Acer is the world's largest vendor of completed PCs and notebooks. Acer's plants in Chongqing, which only commenced business in December 2010, realized an output of 5 million notebooks in 2011.

In the year, 35 percent of Acer's global notebook shipments were supplied from Chongqing. Meanwhile, rival HP plans to have 60-70 percent of its notebook shipments supplied from Chongqing in future.

Chongqing mayor Huang Qifan also met the entrepreneurs on Wednesday, saying the city has become home to the world's five leading notebook producers and six vendors, as well 500 suppliers of the sector.

The city had a total output of 25 million notebooks in 2011 and is aiming for an annual output of 100 million of the products in three years.