Jiaxing is a city in northern Zhejiang province, east of China. It covers and area of 3,915 square kilometres, with a population of 3.71 million.
Jiaxing is known as a ‘land of fish and rice’ and the ‘home of silk’. Its traditional agriculture products are crops, freshwater fish and silkworm cocoon.
Its traditional industries include leather, warp knitting, cardigan, timber processing, machinery, chemical fiber and textile. Meanwhile, the city also focuses on the development of hi-tech industries in new materials, photo-electro-mechanical integration and bio-medical industry.
In 2003, the city’s GDP reached 85.56 billion RMB (£5.7 billion), the total industrial output value of the large-scale enterprises reached 125 billion RMB (£8.3 billion), and the total import and export value 5.712 billion USD (£3.05 billion). It produced 1/3 of the total domestic plywood and 1/4 of the total global leather products.
High education institutes in Jiaxing are Zhejiang Qinghua Changshanjiao Research Institute, Jiaxing College and Jiashan Guangbiao College of Shanghai Shanda University. At present, there are over 22,000 university students in Jiaxing.