Making ‘big plan’ to join prosperity in Guangdong
“We have a big plan,” said the mayor of Zhanjiang, a port city in China’s deep south.
Wang Zhongbing is himself a trained engineer in steel production. And Zhanjiang will be home to a major modern steel mill to replace the old, polluting steel- making capacity that the country is going to shed.
But as mayor of Zhanjiang, the plan that Wang presents is far from just a single heavy industry.
And he hastened to add that “our steel mill will be clean, as we have designed in it all the modern pollution control solutions”.
Zhanjiang’s plan is for virtually all industries and along with them future efforts to protect and use the city’s “green mountains, blue sea, white clouds and clean sky”, said the 50- yearold mayor.
A prominent feature of Zhanjiang’s plan for its future is the rapid development of services through closer business ties with Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta in the central part of Guangdong province. Zhanjiang is located in Guangdong’s far western peninsula.
Focus on service
By highlighting the service sector, Zhanjiang’s blueprint differs from the old- style development plans made by the mainland local officials.
Services account for around 37 percent of Zhanjiang’s economy. About the same percentage of its population of some 8 million are urban residents.
In the first half of this year, the city’s service-related investment was around 15 billion yuan, up almost 70 percent from the same period last year, said Wang.
Of the city’s newly built fixed assets worth 24 billion yuan, service-related investment accounted for more than 60 percent.
Wang said the city’s service development will stress on four aspects: focus will be to improve services and shipping- based logistic services to connect to the global system. for a series of investment projects covers Zhanjiang harbor and five neighboring islands. More resort facilities will be built to attract tourists to have longer stays and spend more money. the focus will be on importing modern financial services to the port city.
for a future smart city, more effort will be made to develop the telecom services and e-commerce.
Zhanjiang’s target is to increase the share of urban residents to 60 percent of its population in 10 years, according to the mayor.
Links with Hong Kong
Wang explained that it is easy to see that Zhanjiang’s allround development depends to a large extent on one thing — connectivity with Hong Kong and the rest of Guangdong.
Without the convenience of less than a two- hour — and hopefully around one hour — mass transport connection with the Pearl River Delta and even Hong Kong, the city cannot offer its now largely empty beaches and beautiful cultural attractions to a stable stream of visitors.
All over China, small cities are scrambling to build one to two- hour connections with regional business hubs by high-speed transport.
Being close to a bigger city, or being one of a cluster of cities, can lend a considerable advantage to a small city by helping it identify its unique competence and market niche without having to struggle alone and try to develop everything at once.
Seen from that perspective, Zhanjiang, despite all its natural endowments, must emphasize its linkage with Hong Kong and other cities in Guangdong. The city’s investment road show to Hong Kong, planned for the second half of August, is a case in point.
To build itself into the intracity network of Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta is the ultimate way for the city to define a sustainable line of business and its future identity, said Wang, the top city administrator.
High-speed rail
According to Guangdong’s present plan, Zhanjiang still has to wait until 2016 to have its high-speed rail connection with the provincial capital of Guangzhou.
The city is already connected with Guangzhou by highways. But to cover the whole distance, around 480 kilometers, takes around five hours.
But the provincial government’s recent decision highlighting the development in areas other than the Pearl River Delta may shorten Zhanjiang’s wait.
High- speed railways, which allow trains to run up to 350 km an hour, are most welcomed by provincial and city-level officials as a much more effective way to integrate the regional economy than roads. The regular speed of highway transport usually does not exceed 100 km an hour.
At the same time the central government tends to boost growth by investing in new rail projects. To make sure that China will