produces paper, silk, and leather products. The surrounding region is rich in agricultural resources, growing rice, barley, oil seeds, sesame, and tea. The largest employer in Yibin is Wuliangye Yibin, a company best known for Wuliangye, a brand of sorghum-based distilled spirits known as baijiu. The Wuliangye Group grew from a small company employing just 300 people in 1977 into a large company employing over 20,000 on a seven-square-kilometer plant. According to an August 2005 article in a securities weekly, the Wuliangye Group is 72% state-owned and provides 70% of the revenues of Yibin City, a major regional center at the head of the Yangtze in southeastern Sichuan. In 2004 6,225 retired military worked for the company, out of a total work force of over 20,000. A third of top management positions are held by retired members of the military. Unsuccessful efforts to diversify its business, poor transparency and a murky ownership pictures are among the company's problems today. Transportation The region's natural waterways provide transportation links with the surrounding area, and Yibin is also connected to Chongqing and Chengdu by rail and express highway. Yibin's proximity to the Yunnan and Guizhou borders also means that transportation to the provinces is available by rail and by bus. Yibin has three bridges over the Chang Jiang section of the Yangtze and ten bridges over the Jinsha. Yibin Wuliangye Airport offers flights to Beijing, Guangzhou, Guiyang, Hangzhou, Kunming, Lhasa, Sanya, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Xi'an, and Yichang. Yibin opened the world's second Autonomous Rail Rapid Transit/"trackless tram" system in December 2019. <noinclude> Tourism There are several hot springs near Yibin, plus many other tourist attractions. Such attractions include the Bamboo Sea in Changning County and the Xingwen Stone Forest. Yibin is also the confluence of the Min and Jinsha Rivers, which together form the Chang Jiang as the Yangtze River is known in Chinese, from Yibin to Shanghai. Cuiping Mountain Park (), located west of the confluence of those two rivers, provides views of downtown Yibin. Yibin in literature Dragonfly Eyes by Cao Wenxuan Notes References . . External links Official city website Unofficial city briefing of Yibin Yibin City on bashu.net Yibin on chinaculture.org Populated places on the Yangtze River Prefecture-level divisions of Sichuan Cities in Sichuan