People who have visited Taicang often remember it as a small, comfortable and habitable city with an appearance similar to a foreign town.

In recent years, the city in East China's Jiangsu province has endeavored to brand itself as a modern garden city.

The city boosted afforestation, infrastructure construction, the housing security system and public services to improve the living environment for local residents.

According to a local plan, the city aims to develop its urban and rural areas in a balanced way. The core of its modern garden city construction will be modern industries and ecological agriculture.

Taicang's agricultural development will be done in a "technology-based" and "eco-friendly" way.

This year, the city aims to add 2,134 hectares of high-standard farmland and expand the area of modern cooperative farms to 16,008 hectares. The city is determined to push the output value of its eco-friendly agriculture up to 10 billion yuan ($1.6 billion), and train more modern professional farmers.

While supporting technology-based agriculture, the city will also make efforts to build ecological rural villages.

Taicang has proved that promoting modern agriculture does not necessarily mean a financial burden for the local government, and can lead to environmental improvement, according to local government officials.

To achieve its goal of building a modern garden city, Taicang has placed ecological construction at a strategic position. The city has completed a plan for ecological construction and set strict principles to tackle pollution.

To enhance the functions of the city, the local government has paid great attention to the equality of public services, including education and medical treatment, between its urban and rural areas.

The Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development gave Taicang the China Habitable Environment Prize in 2013.

In terms of industrial development, Taicang plans to carry a new round of upgrades from this year in areas including infrastructure, emerging industries and modern services.

Taicang has more than 200 enterprises in the emerging industries that bring in 103.6 billion yuan worth of products and services a year.

Attractive destination

Taicang's enhanced industrial foundation and improved business environment have made it an increasingly attractive destination for foreign investment, especially investment from Germany.

On March 31, Taicang was agreed as the location for the Taicang German Center, an investment of $12 million by Bayerische Landesbank.

The German center is a not-for-profit organization that helps German businesses, especially small and medium-sized enterprises investing overseas, by offering information consultations, research, exhibitions and other services.

It is the eighth center of its kind globally and the third in China. The first two are in Shanghai and Beijing.

The center will provide comprehensive services for German companies in Taicang and nearby regions, and will play an important role in boosting cooperation between German and Chinese companies.

According to Zhu Wanli, vice-mayor of Taicang, the fact the center will be in Taicang is significant for the city.

In his opinion, SMEs have made great contributions to Germany's manufacturing industry.

Zhu said Taicang should learn from German experience in upgrading its industries by focusing more on SMEs.

He believes the German center will become a higher-level cooperation platform for companies from both countries.

In China, Taicang is known for its high concentration of German companies.

Since Kern-Liebrs Taicang Co Ltd was established in 1993, more than 220 German-funded companies, including ventures by globally renowned companies such as Schaeffler and Siemens, have settled in the city. These companies generated annual output of more than 30 billion yuan in recent years.

A group of small German companies covering high technology, high profit and economical land usage industries, have gathered in Taicang.

Taicang and Germany have offices in each other's remits to deepen exchanges and cooperation in trade, education and culture.

In 2008, Taicang was named the "cooperation base for Chinese and German enterprises" by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Economy and Technology of Germany - the first and only one in China.

liuxiangrui@chinadaily.com.cn