The environmentally friendly new material technology park, which is under construction, has great potential to combine industry with research and is supported by the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Dalian University of Technology.

The city's two top leaders decided to establish a professional team to attract investments from all over the country and enhance the catalyst industry based on the powerful research capacity of the park.

Xiao said the Changxingdao economic zone aims to build a world-class hub for petrochemicals, shipbuilding and marine engineering and port logistics.

Changxingdao should further efforts to introduce investments to accelerate major projects and make more contribution to the city's industrial restructuring, he said.

Xiao said Dalian's government funds would play a leading role in attracting private capital to large projects, which in return would promote a steady increase in private investments.

"Models such as public-private-partnerships boost major projects, including 200 large projects to be started in the second half," Xiao said.

Dalian is home to 16 enterprises that are valued at more than 10 billion yuan each, 19 enterprise clusters valued at more than 10 billion yuan each and three clusters worthy more than 100 billion yuan.

Dalian companies have an edge in petrochemicals, shipbuilding, diesel-fueled and electric locomotives, machine tools, bearings, nuclear power equipment, car audio equipment, transformers and new materials.

Tourist destination

As a popular tourist destination, Dalian is rich in tourism resources.

The newly established Sweetland City resort received 10,000 visitors a day on average since it opened in November. More than 30,000 people visited the resort during peak time.