November 5, 2007 6:00 pm -- On October 25, Franklin Towers announced that Chongqing Qiluo Textile Co., Ltd., its wholly owned subsidiary in China, is now in a position to begin implementing its acquisition strategy with Chinese regional government support. And on October 29th, Franklin Towers revealed its new multi-million dollar facility located in Chongqing as its main base of operations. This new facility is expected to bring in latest high-end silk manufacturing machinery that will elevate both the quality and the quantity of the silk being produced in Chongqing. It is estimated that it will render significant revenue increases as its new facility brings increased production and distribution capabilities.

"The average GDP growth in Chongqing of 12 percent makes the city very competitive," Kelly Fan, CEO of Franklin Towers Enterprises, Inc. told Emerging China, "Chongqing has more advantage in terms of human resource costs and economic policy support along with the government's ‘Develop the West' strategy," she said, "And the local government is playing a very important role supporting us with the incentives."

The local government's endorsement will provide Qiluo with a number of material preferential benefits. These government incentives include such as land policy exemptions, tax breaks, project prioritization (priority in review and approval of applications), and Energy discounts (upon approval, company can receive discounts of fees related to water, electric, gas, etc).

"Different than the East coast silk industry which has more emphasis on silk reprocessing, Chongqing is more focused on raw silk production due to its natural weather and soil conditions, mostly in Chongqing Yudong and Yunan area." Su, an officer at Chongqing Foreign Trade and Economic Relations Commission told Emerging China. "Also as the land cost and manpower cost is increasing on the east coast, business is shifting to the west." he said.

With the government's preferential policies, Chongqing's silk industry has seen some significant developments.

"The government's beneficial policies in the west, the natural geographical advantage, the local labor supply and abundant power resources have granted us the conditions to ensure the quality of products while maintaining cost controls." Qu Mei, manager of Xiangfei Silk Company Ltd. told Emerging China.

"Foreign investment coming in could potentially help us develop the silk industry. As a traditional industry, it is searching for its uniqueness, and also looking to be in fashion. Foreign investment will optimize the structure of local silk companies, and bring in new technology" she said. "Of course there would be competition at a certain stage, but it should eventually help the local businesses become healthier."

Franklin Towers Enterprises is a development stage company. Through its subsidiary, Chongqing Qiluo Textile Co., Ltd., it intends to engage in the manufacture and sale of raw silk in Chongqing Municipality. The company intends to sell its products to various markets, including silk brokers, textile manufacturing, and the auto industry, as well as to computer technology companies for use in plastics and materials.

China is the world's largest silk producer. In 2005, it accounted for 74 percent of the global raw silk production and 90 percent of the world export market according to statistics from the Chinese Ministry of Commerce.