BEIJING, June 4 (Xinhua) -- China will crank up efforts to press ahead with regional development this year and regional powerhouses are expected to demonstrate more advantages in driving economic development, said Liu Yunzhong, director of the Department of Development Strategy and Regional Economy under Development Research Center of the State Council.
Recent years, China's economic regions that span more than one province, city or place alike such as the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and Yangtze River Economic Belt have grown to be important regional powerhouses.
In 2019, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, Yangtze River Delta and Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area contributed respectively gross regional product of 8.5 trillion yuan, 23.7 trillion yuan and 11.4 trillion yuan, making up as a whole 44 percent of the country's annual gross domestic product (GDP), noted Cong Liang, secretary general of China's top economic planner the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) on a recent news briefing.
The above-mentioned three regions have factually become the economic engines for driving the Chinese economy, held Cong, adding that realizing high-quality development of regional economy needs to find answers from the three.
In the future, China will further speed up the implementation of regional development strategies, advance coordinated regional development, cultivate and enhance regional growth drivers to offset impact brought by the COVID-19 epidemic, said Cong.
-- Yangtze River Delta to hail first cross-province spatial plan
Year to date, China's first trans-province legal space plan, the master plan for land space planning in a demonstration zone in the Yangtze River Delta for ecologically friendly integrated development is at the stage of final optimization.
The master plan, compiled jointly by local governments of Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang, is likely to realize for the first time in China "one blueprint planning development of all related provinces".
The demonstration zone covers a combined area of 2,300 square kilometers, involving two districts and one county, namely Qingpu District of Shanghai, Wujiang District in Suzhou City of Jiangsu Province and Jiashan County in Jiaxing City of Zhejiang Province.
The plan echoed with the key to invigorating integrated development of the area, which is breaking geological constraints and administrative obstacles, unlocking comparative advantages and optimizing overall deployment.
Apart from integrated development, achieving high-quality development of the demonstration zone remains also another priority.
In December 2019, the State Council, the Chinese cabinet, promulgated the outlines for integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta, in which crafting a national growth engine and a modeled zone for high-quality economic development via integrated development was clearly clarified.
Currently, the demonstration zone in the Yangtze River Delta for ecologically friendly integrated development, as a testing stone, is pillaring up high-quality integrated development of the area.
By far, the demonstration zone has unveiled thresholds for industrial programs in the firstly operational area, unified for all sub-areas located in different related provinces.
By taking regional differences into consideration in the firstly operational area, the administrative committee of the demonstration zone will spare transitional economic density adjustment margin for different sub-areas to better spur overall regional development.
As an authority noted, the year of 2020 represents an "intensive construction period" for the demonstration zone. At present, its administrative committee has sorted out together with the two districts and one county nearly 100 programs, of which 33 ones related to ecological and environmental protection, interconnectivity, innovative development and public services will be focused on.
-- New infrastructure underlined in key economic regions
New infrastructure, a popular word in recent months or beyond, refers to an innovative development concept-led, technology innovation-driven and information network-based infrastructure system that provides services such as digital transformation, intelligent upgrading and integrated innovation.
In the demonstration zone in the Yangtze River Delta for ecologically friendly integrated development, work to start a smart brain project is being kicked off, aiming to build an integrated smart hub to enable interconnectivity of related data between different provinces in the zone.
Embodied by 5G, artificial intelligence (AI), big data center, industrial internet, smart charging poles, etc., new infrastructure construction is being widely scaled up in the country's other key economic regions.
In south China, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area has attracted a host of enterprises such as Huawei, Baidu, JD.com Inc., and Hong Kong-based Sunwah Group to sign online cloud contracts to seize development chances in new infrastructure in the Greater Bay Area.
As Gao Yuyue, deputy secretary general of Guangzhou municipal government introduced, the first batch of 73 key digital new infrastructure projects in the bay area involved a total investment of about 180 billion yuan.
In Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Hebei provincial government released a plan on digital economy development of the province in late April, proposing to construct the Xiongan national digital economy innovation and development experimental zone, via which a new digital economy highland will be crafted in the region.
To build the experimental zone, smart city construction, digital economy factor circulation, and system and mechanism construction are encouraged to be tried to thoroughly display its bringing-up effect, highlighted Zhao Wenfeng, deputy director of Hebei Development and Reform Commission.
Elsewhere, Chengdu-Chongqing twin-city economic circle embraced its first development fund, which is planned to be 10 billion yuan in the initial phase. To run under market-oriented mechanisms, the fund will focus on investing in strategically emerging manufacturing sectors including integrated circuit, intelligent manufacturing, new type of display, new materials, new energy and biopharmacy, strategically emerging service sectors such as aviation tourism and big health, smart city and new infrastructure as well to push ahead coordinated development of the couple of cities. (Edited by Duan Jing with Xinhua Silk Road, duanjing@xinhua.org)
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