Shanghai steps up pace to ready five ‘new cities’ for investment
Shanghai’s ambitious plan to build five “new cities” in suburban areas will be accelerated as more facilities with key functions are put into use, making the locations better equipped for investment.
The five “new cities” are respectively in Jiading, Qingpu, Songjiang and Fengxian districts as well as Nanhui in the Pudong New Area.
Jiading New City
Jiading New City has made “city-industry integration” a top priority since the beginning of this new round of development. It is making efforts to promote diversified industrial development, and building a modern industrial system in line with the actual needs of the “new city.”
As an example, the East Money Information Co, a Chinese financial and stock information provider, has planned to set up a financial technology research institute in the area. It aims to help Jiading New City build a new “highland” of sci-tech innovation, said Chen Kai, vice general manager of East Money Securities.
The project was officially launched on April 30, 2021, and construction of the second-floor underground is currently under way. The overall project is expected to be completed and put into use in the first half of 2024, Chen said.
Meanwhile, as a center of Shanghai’s automobile industry, Jiading is focusing on the carbon dioxide emissions peak and carbon neutrality and galvanizing the development of hydrogen fuel cell vehicle technology.
Take Shanghai Motor Vehicle Inspection Certification & Tech Innovation Center Co for instance. It was officially approved in May to establish a measurement and testing center for the city’s hydrogen fuel cell vehicle industry.
It will offer comprehensive testing and professional metrological services in the automotive industry, aiming to solve related problems encountered in the early stage of development of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, and to break through the technology bottleneck that restricts industry development.
Qingpu New City
As a key project in Qingpu, Fudan University is setting up an integrated innovation center in which it will establish institutes for integrated circuits, micro- and nano-electronics, computing, biomedical engineering, intelligent robotics and advanced manufacturing.
A number of new engineering research platforms will also be laid out to study
cutting-edge technologies in key fields such as communication and information engineering, aerospace and complex systems engineering, according to Wu Libo, director of Fudan’s development and planning office.
The center will help fill the gap in Qingpu’s higher education resources, and can also give full play to Fudan’s Qingpu campus in supporting integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta region.
TCL Electronics Holdings, meanwhile, revealed a new two-phase project in the district with a total investment of about 3 billion yuan (US$447 million). It plans to build a production and R&D cluster of electronic information and semiconductor materials, which will gather and support upstream and downstream enterprises in the industrial chains of TCL Technology and TCL Industries.
TCL will set up a new 102.8 mu (6.9 hectares) campus with an investment of 1 billion yuan in the first phase, the company revealed.
Also, the China Railway No. 4 Engineering Group plans to set up its headquarters in the central business district of Qingpu New City, hoping to serve as a seedbed for high-quality development.
Songjiang New City
In Songjiang District, brand-new school buildings have been erected for the Songjiang Future Experimental School affiliated to Shanghai Normal University, of which overall construction has entered the final stage.
It will be a new public school covering the education of nine grades in primary and middle schools, with six classes in each grade, according to Zhang Lei, principal of Songjiang Future Experimental School.
According to its plan this year, the school has completed enrollments for one class each in the first and sixth grades, and will open in September.
For medical services, in the south Songjiang campus of Shanghai General Hospital, the second phase of its expansion project is stepping up construction.
The project involves the addition of an inpatient building, an outpatient medical technology building, a research building and a fever clinic, with a new total construction area of nearly 159,000 square meters and accommodation for 600 hospital beds.
After completion, the project will directly answer the medical needs of Songjiang New City and the southwest of Shanghai.
Fengxian New City
Fengxian New City is to focus more on the development of innovation, digitalization, consumption, and culture and creative industries.
Shanghai Electric Group founded Shanghai Electric New Energy Development Co in Fengxian, with a registered capital of 3 billion yuan. It serves as a unified functional platform to support the group’s new-energy development and independent technology innovation. It is also a support platform for the group to develop the new-energy equipment industry and independent technology innovation.
The main focus of the new company will be on smart energy, smart manufacturing and smart infrastructure, according to Chen Haiying, deputy director of Fengxian District’s development and reform commission.
The construction and development of new-energy projects on integrated energy and distributed energy, together with the energysaving transformation of parks in the district, will help Fengxian build an ecological area and accelerate the progress of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality, Chen said.
As another major project in Fengxian, a new branch of the Shanghai Art Museum, its first branch since its establishment 66 years ago, will be set up in a cultural center in Fengxian.
Nanhui New City
The Shanghai Petroleum and Gas Exchange has been one of the major projects in Nanhui New City. The exchange is a national energy-trading platform under direct guidance of the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration.
In 2021, it recorded a trading volume of 81.663 billion cubic meters of bilateral gas, maintaining its position as Asia’s largest spot gas trading platform. Up to now, the number of its domestic and foreign member enterprises has exceeded 3,300.
“The exchange will develop international business, achieve innovation and breakthroughs, and make every effort to serve Shanghai’s aim of building an international petroleum and gas trading and pricing center,” said Ye Guobiao, chairman of the exchange.
Meanwhile, more high-quality education resources will be introduced into Nanhui New City. During the 14th Five-Year (2021-2025) Plan period, the area will join hands with a number of universities to set up basic education schools.
Among the key projects, a Lingang campus of the No. 2 High School of East China Normal University will be built in Nanhui. Construction started at the beginning of the year and the school is expected to open in September next year.
The area is also optimizing its education development system, setting up research institutes, universities for the elderly and activity centers for teenagers, said Fang Juan, deputy director of the social development department of Lingang Special Area Administrative Committee.