BEIJING, April 17 (Xinhua) -- Northeast China's Jilin Province is making efforts in turning itself from a geometric center of Northeast Asia to an economic center of the region by building international transport networks.
Wider opening-up on upgraded traffic networks
Located at the junction of China, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and Russia, Hunchun, a county-level city in Jilin boasts four highway and railway ports to Russia and the DPRK, the annual customs clearance capacity of which reaches 2.3 million passengers and 7 million metric tons (tonnes) of goods after being upgraded.
As the land-sea combined transport line connecting east China's Ningbo Port, Russia and the Republic of Korea (ROK) opens, goods in Hunchun can be transported to the ROK and even Europe and America via the Arctic shipping routes.
In terms of land transport, the Changchun-Hunchun-Europe freight train line was opened in March this year. Besides, goods transported through the Sino-Russian Hunchun-Makhalino Railway, a transport trunk in Northeast Asia, exceeded 3 million tonnes in 2018, up 19.5 percent year on year.
In west Jilin, the G-Series high-speed train linking Jilin, the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and Mongolia can transport more than 30,000 passengers a day.
While in central Jilin, goods transported by the Changchun-Manzhouli-Europe freight train line which has a cargo transit hub in Germany valued nearly a billion U.S. dollars.
Opening-up has yielded fruitful results for the province, which has seen its total import and export value increase by 8.6 percent year on year in 2018 and its exports in the first two months of 2019 rise by 5 percent year on year.
Improving provincial transport network
The continuously-improved provincial transport network and increasingly-stronger connection ability of Jilin play a vital role in advancing its opening-up to Northeast Asia.
Taking the convenient air-rail combined transport, an epitome of Jilin's transport network construction, as an example, Changchun Longjia International Airport, an international airport in Jilin, has achieved an annual passenger throughput of over 12 million. Besides, up to 42 pairs of D-Series High-Speed Trains will stop at the airport each day, rarely-seen nationwide.
As for road construction, the total mileage of expressways in Jilin approaches to 3,300 kilometers, carrying 80 percent of the province's road freight. High-speed railway lines also contribute a lot to the prosper of the Province.
Driven by these transport networks, many cities in Jilin such as Changchun have built inland ports to connect with neighboring sea ports such as Dalian and Yingkou.
Building industrial clusters
By relying on the transport networks and with Changchun Economic Circle as the spearhead, Jilin is putting strong efforts to forge industrial clusters to further promote opening-up.
Changchun and Jilin City, whose economic aggregate accounts for 58 percent of that of Jilin Province, have been enjoying an increasing integrated development momentum, yielding multiple functional areas including the Changchun Automobile Economic and Technological Development Zone.
Similar industrial agglomeration also took place in Changchun and Gongzhuling, where interconnection of roads and other infrastructure is being advanced and manufacturing industry clusters are being forged.
Thanks to cluster development, high-tech enterprises and small tech giants in Jilin grew by 69.8 percent and 161.1 percent year on year respectively in 2018. Besides, as of the end of last year, Jilin has attracted a total of 86,000 locals to return to their hometown for employment or starting businesses. (Edited by Gu Shanshan)
A single purchase
