Xiamen now is a fast growing and developed morden city in China.The industry here is machine, electron, textile, clothes, food and chemical industry. The output of electron industry and cigarette are in the first place in China. Drink, leather goods, industry arts chemical fibre, electric appliances and instruments are well-known all over the country. The special region covers an area of 131 square kilometers, and it has formed the initial scale. In agriculture, there are grains, peanut, sugar cane, tea and fruits. Xiamen Harbor is the important foreign trade harbor. It has some ocean-going route to some other countries and places, such as Singapore, Japan, Macaw and so on. And passenger ships and cargo ships will go to Hong Kong, Shanghai, Guangzhou and so many other places.

Geography Xiamen Xiamen is a scenic coastal city in Southeast China. It is located in the southeastern part of Fujian Province. It is from there that Jiulongjiang (Nine Dragon River) empties into the sea. Xiamen City sits in front of Zhangzhou and Quanzhou plains and borders on Taiwan Strait. It stands opposite to Taiwan and the Penghu Islands at a distance.

Xiamen City consists of Xiamen Island, Gulangyu Island and part of the coastal area in the northern bank of Nine Dragon River. It covers an area of 1,565 square kilometers. There are seven districts, namely, Kaiyuan, Siming, Gulangyu Island, Huli, Jimei, Xinglin and Tong'an under the jurisdiction of Xiamen, with a registered population of 1.2659 million people. By the end of 1998, the constructed area of Xiamen City had reached 70.18 square kilometers.

Xiamen enjoys subtropical oceanic climate. In most time of the year, it has warm and rainy weather without extreme heat in summer nor extreme cold in winter. The average annual temperature is about 21 º C. Sunshine is abundant. Even in the winter months the temperature rarely falls below 10 º C, although there may be a cold wind chill. You can visit Xiamen at any time except for August, when all the boats along the coast stop cruising. Also July-September is typhoon season which is probably worth missing.

Typhoon attacks Xiamen five to six times a year, occurring mostly between July and September.

In recent years, Xiamen City has made great progress with marked achievements in terms of harnessing the ecological and natural environment in a comprehensive way. In 1995, Xiamen won the title of "China's Advanced City in Terms of Comprehensive Management of the Environment" and came in the first place in terms of the environmental sanitation in the appraisal organized in 35 big and middle-sized cities;

in May of 1996, Xiamen City was granted the title of "One of China's Cleanest Cities". According to Xiamen City Environmental State Bulletin released by the Municipal Bureau of Environmental Protection, during the year of 1997, the municipal government put a total of 180 million yuan into the green project, which includes planting more trees in the urban gardens and parks and reinforcing the shelterbelts around the city. As a result, 163.9 hectares of new gardens and green areas emerged in the city, which made the coverage of green areas in the urban area reach 35.4% and the public green area per capita approaches 9.9 square meters. In the year of 1997, Xiamen City generated 2,735,000 tons of garbage, all of which have been properly disposed of. A percentage of 94.88% of domestic garbage was duly treated. And as much as 2,498,000 tons was treated in a harmless way. The air quality of Xiamen City remained good and among the best of the country's separately listed cities. In 1997, the air pollution index (API) in the urban area of Xiamen City was 36. the daily and yearly average values of sulfur dioxide, nitro-oxides and the suspended particles-three of the four key indices used for assessing air quality, maintain within the range of first-rated standards. In July of 1998, the API of Xiamen City was 28. After analyzing the 14 items selected for assessing the quality of the source of drinking water in the quantitative examination with respect to the comprehensive control of urban environments, 97.2% of Xiamen's drinking water comes up to the relevant standard in terms of the quality of source. In 1997, the environmental noise in the urban area averaged 56.5 decibels. In order to get a clearer picture of the average level of noise in the tourist attractions of the city, the Municipal Bureau of Tourism entrusted the municipal environment monitoring station to arrange for a special survey of the noise level in eight selected tourist attractions. The survey found that the average round-the-clock level of noise in the eight attractions averaged 55.48 decibels.

With the approval of the State Council, a special economic zone (SEZ) was established in an area of 2.5 square kilometers in the northwest of Xiamen City in October, 1980. in March, 1984, the SEZ was enlarged to the whole island of Xiamen (including Gulangyu Island), covering an area of 131 square kilometers and the policy of free port was gradually introduced into the SEZ. In May 1989, an investment zone enjoying the same treatment as the SEZ exclusively open to Taiwanese investors was set up in Xinglin,

Haicang and Jimei (three districts of Xiamen City) with the approval of the State Council. In November 1992, Xiangyu Island Tax Bond Area was formed, again with the approval of the State Council.
Ever since Xiamen became a special economic zone, the municipal government has always been adhering to the fundamental policy of reform and opening-up. By taking full use of its geographical advantage, Xiamen has absorbed a huge amount of foreign capital, especially the funds from the overseas Chinese and Taiwanese to promote the economic integration among the enterprises of similar product structures. Now Xiamen has formed an export-oriented economic pattern with developing industry as the priority and three industries developing in a balanced way. After more than a decade's continuous improvement, Xiamen SEZ has created a relatively favorable investment environment and the foreign-invested companies have become an important force in developing the SEZ's export-oriented economy.
After years of construction, Xiamen City has now become a scenic coastal city boasting of complete infrastructure and robust internationally and domestically economic activities from a once closed and underdeveloped island. It ranks in the tenth place among the Chinese cities in terms of comprehensive economic strength. It is also one of the 40 Chinese cities with attractive physical investment environment.
Currently, Xiamen has defined its development target for the 21st century. The basic guideline for developing industries is to expand and adjust the secondary industry, vigorously develop the tertiary industry, optimize and upgrade the primary industry. The priorities in the development of industries will be in the following seven sectors: industry adopting advanced technology, communication and transportation, foreign and domestic trade and commerce, banking and insurance, tourist service, construction and real estate and information telecommunication.