Connecting point

Jeremy Tredinnick discovers that while its people remain relatively laid-back, Chengdu is very much in fast-forward mode

T he drive into Chengdu from busy Shuangliu International airport is the same as most modern Chinese cities – along a wide, well-built expressway lined with car dealers ranging from Mazda and Honda to Mercedes, Maserati and Bentley.

The city skyline appears up ahead, a typical forest of soaring towers, but then we turn north towards an even larger urban sprawl and I realise that they were merely part of the Tianfu New Area that has grown so fast in the past few years. This planned 1,578 sq km city will comprise seven zones focusing on manufacturing, high-tech, innovation, and research and development, as well as scenic water and mountain areas to make it appealing as a liveable new urban centre.

Chengdu has more than 4,000 years of history as the focal point of the fertile Sichuan Basin, and has seen its share of change over the millennia, but never on a scale such as this. “Three years ago I came here and the only international hotels were Sofitel, Wanda and the Shangri-La [there was a Sheraton and Kempinski too], but look at it now,” says Khan Sung, general manager of the new JW Marriott Chengdu.

The old downtown district north of the Jinjiang River is still the cultural and business centre, but four subway lines now transport its population of 7.8 million people out to sprawling suburbs and secondary urban centres, while Chengdu’s population over its entire administrative area is 14 million. Somehow, though, it maintains a more easygoing atmosphere than the east-coast cities. Residents have a reputation for valuing quality of life, manifested in the city’s teahouse culture and people’s love of communal discourse and the arts.

ECONOMY & INFRASTRUCTURE

According to the Chengdu Municipal Bureau of Statistics, the city’s GDP exceeded RMB 1 trillion (RMB 1 = `9.33) in 2015, a year-on-year increase of 7.9 per cent, 1 per cent higher than the national average. Much of this is down to growth in the automotive and pharmaceutical sectors, but increasingly IT and modern service industries are muscling in on the commercial landscape, especially in areas like the Hi-Tech Zone in the Tianfu New Area.

Chengdu was at the forefront of China’s “Go West” campaign that began at the turn of the 21st century, and has since become a land and air gateway to Europe, the Middle East and Africa for Chinese business. In July 2015, a freight train left the city loaded with electronics and motor parts and headed to Lodz in Poland, from where the goods were distributed to Germany, the Netherlands and Slovakia. Less than a month later it returned with goods from Italy, France and Spain.

This route is part of China’s so-called “One Belt, One Road” initiative to create a modern “Silk Road”, a Eurasian Land Bridge of rail and road networks linking China’s east coast with Europe across Central Asia. Exports from Shenzhen, Xiamen, Ningbo and Kunming will now have a route to European markets through Chengdu, making it a key transport hub.

The city also has major aviation ambitions. In May last year, construction began on the RMB 70 billion Chengdu Tianfu International Airport. Located in Jianyang City, about 50km south of both Chengdu and Shuangliu International, it is scheduled to be finished by 2020 and will cater to the economic growth of Chengdu, the Tianfu New Area and Chongqing, all of which will be connected to it by improved or new road and rail networks.

The need for a second airport for the city and province is easy to see. Shuangliu’s passenger throughput reached 40 million in 2015, and is projected to rise to 60 million by 2020 – the second airport will be able to handle up to 90 million passengers per year, cementing Chengdu’s status as the fourth-largest state-level aviation hub, after Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

Priscilla Wong is residence manager of IFS Residences, a new luxury serviced apartment property that opened in November above the huge shopping mall of the same name. “Growth is expected at a similar pace [to recent years] for the next couple of years since plans were announced to further upgrade the city and its transportation network, ”she says. “Chengdu will become increasingly internationalised when its second airport opens in 2020; more air routes to Asia, Europe, North America and Africa will generate even more investment in the city.”