Delta demonstration zone delivers results
The Yuandang Lake is on the border of Shanghai and Jiangsu Province.
The Yangtze River Delta Ecology and Greenery Integration Demonstration Zone has yielded fruitful results and is expected to grow further, said the participants during a work progress meeting held on December 9.
Established in 2019, the Yangtze River Delta region’s demonstration zone for integrated ecological and green development includes Jiashan County in Zhejiang Province, Wujiang District of Suzhou City in Jiangsu Province, and Qingpu District of Shanghai.
Over the past four years, the zone’s executive committee has guided 136 institutional innovations to success.
Qingpu, Wujiang and Jiashan established China’s first cross-administrative district territorial spatial plan and implemented the “river and lake chief” rotation mechanism for their management.
The cross-area handling method for birth registration and marriage has been constantly improved.
Furthermore, five interprovincial dead-end roads have been cleared, and construction on a number of traffic projects, including the Shanghai-Suzhou-Jiaxing inter-city railway, the Shanghai-Suzhou-Huzhou high-speed railway, the west extension of Metro Line 17, and the comprehensive transfer hub in Qingpu New City, has been accelerated.
A number of initiatives, including the pooling of medical treatment resources, cross-regional medical insurance settlement, vocational education cooperation and a cross-region senior care pilot, have been announced.
With the cooperation of six hospitals and 12 community health service centers in the district, the function of the Yangtze River Delta (Shanghai) Smart Internet Hospital in Qingpu has been deepened and has been expanded to include Wujiang, Jiashan, and related paired regions.
The ecological waterfront walkway along Yuandang Lake is now available to the public, and the “blue links of pearls” project has been accelerated. Several adjacent lakes and ponds surround a number of picturesque settlements, resembling a blue pearl necklace, hence the project’s name.
Qingpu’s development is also gaining traction. It has introduced and fostered 1,066 high-tech firms, as well as established 59 academician (expert) workstations, with a focus on green and innovative economies.
Last year, its R&D fund investment accounted for 4.41 percent of the district’s total GDP, an increase of 0.85 percentage points over the previous year.
The “Yangtze River Delta digital line” construction has been accelerated, and the district has been designated as the nation’s first trans-provincial high-tech sector development zone.
The Xicen Science and Technology Innovation Park is coming together, and Huawei’s new R&D center in Qingpu is set to open in the first half of next year.
The Yangtze River Delta digital innovation pilot zone and the Hongqiao digital supply chain agglomeration zone are being developed in the district’s east, while the building of a 6.5-square-kilometer CBD in Qingpu New City is well underway.
The western half of the district has been boosting infrastructure connections and environmental conservation efforts. It has strengthened ties with Zhangjiang Science City in the Pudong New Area and increased efforts in industrial upgrading.
Based on the development blueprint of key industries such as “big digital, big health, and big commerce and trade,” the district will upgrade 100-billion-yuan (US$14 billion) and 10-billion-yuan industrial clusters, as well as create a liveable environment for residents.
