Tianjin, the largest coastal city in northern China, plans to develop itself into a modern service center and hopes to attract the world's business elite to locate in the city.

With an investment of 11 billion yuan ($1.79 billion), the city has built a modern services district, similar to Beijing's central business district, which consists of offices, retail and residential properties of more than 1.3 million square meters. "We want to develop the district into a regional financial, commercial and administrative center," said Zhang Bingjun, chairman of Tianjin TEDA Investment Holding Co Ltd, the State-owned investment company responsible for the project.

The company owns and operates the Tianjin Economic-Technological Development Area which has about 130 foreign businesses from the Fortune 500 list.

"But most of them are manufacturing companies. It will be beneficial to Tianjin if we could attract companies in the service sector," Zhang said. "We hope to bring the world's top entrepreneurs and their management teams to work and reside in the district."

The office occupancy rate in the district has reached 66 percent and the figure for retail property is above 90 percent, according to Zhang.

Zhang said that Tianjin plans to attract domestic and foreign enterprises looking to relocate from Beijing."Our advantages are obvious as we have cheaper labor and lower transport and administrative costs than Beijing."

zhuanti@chinadaily.com.cn