Chengdu, a megacity in western China, is becoming a top destination for international events and high-tech projects from around the world.

The city held the 16th Western China International Fair, a State-level international exposition under the co-sponsorship of China's 16 ministries, 12 provincial-level administrative units and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps in western China, from Nov 3 to 14.

This year's event drew delegates from 91 countries and regions, including Guinea President Alpha Conde, Serb President Milorad Dodik, German Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, and Afghanistan's second Vice-President Mohammad Sarwar Danesh.

In an exhibition area as large as 200,000 square meters, 16 countries set up their national pavilions - more than any previous 15 sessions of the fair, according to the organizers.

Some 9,027 firms from around the world attended the fair, including some of the world's leading firms, such as BMW, Daimler, METRO, DHL, Google and Huawei.

A total of 1,008 investment projects worth nearly 787.7 billion yuan ($116.6 billion) were signed during the fair, according to the organizers. Chengdu brought in 135 investment projects, with total investment of 185 billion yuan.

Many of the projects attracted by Chengdu are high-end manufacturing projects.

Zhejiang Geely Holding Group signed three investment agreements worth 35.5 billion yuan with the city, to strengthen cooperation in auto manufacturing.

One of the newly signed projects will be located in the Chengdu part of Tianfu New Area, China's 11th national-level development area approved by the State Council in October 2014.

It will produce high-performance, purely electric vehicles under the Volvo brand as well as local-brand purely electric vehicles.

The second project will bring in Volvo Scalable Product Architecture, a global full-sized unibody automobile platform developed and produced by Volvo, representing the future of the automobile industry.

The third project will produce Geely's BMA vehicles, using the latest modular architecture platform jointly developed with Volvo, and advanced hybrid and plug-in hybrid power systems.

Intl fair attracts biz and high-tech projects

The three projects will have an annual production capacity of 600,000 units.

Geely started its investment in Chengdu in 2007 by setting up a manufacturing base. In 2010, the company purchased Sweden-based Volvo, and later built Volvo's first manufacturing plant on the Chinese mainland in the city.

Volvo's new luxury sedan, the S60 Inscription, has been manufactured in the Chengdu plant and exported to the United States market since September, 2015.

Li Donghui, executive vice-president of Geely, said he expects the annual output value of the Chengdu base to reach 100 billion yuan after the projects are completed and put into use.

"We will build the Chengdu base into one of our most important strategic bases for new energy vehicles to serve the markets along the Belt and Road," he said.

The Chengdu city government also signed a strategic cooperation agreement with a group of leading new energy carmakers to establish a new energy vehicle industry alliance, helping to make the city a new energy vehicle manufacturing base with an international edge.

Germany-based Siemens AG signed an agreement worth one billion yuan with BOE Technology Group's Chengdu subsidiary to help the latter upgrade its production line.

According to the agreement, Siemens will transform BOE's production line in Chengdu according to the standards of the German Industry 4.0 strategy.

During the Western China International Fair in 2011, Siemens signed an investment agreement with the Chengdu Hi-tech Zone to establish the company's first modern digital factory in China.

In July, Siemens announced that it would increase its presence in Chengdu by setting up a subsidiary with registered capital of 330 million yuan.

"Choosing Chengdu was a wise decision," said Roland Busch, member of the managing board of Siemens, during the Western China International Fair.

He said the Chengdu factory will serve as a model for Siemens' digital factories, as well as a representative project of German Industry 4.0.