New Ideas Leading a New Journey: Jointly Protecting the Yangtze River and Drawing Together New Answers Economic Belt | Yangtze River | Drawing Together with Yangtze River Water
CCTV News: The Yangtze River Economic Belt covers 11 provinces and cities along the Yangtze River, spanning three major plates in China, with a prominent ecological status and huge development potential.Faced with the era proposition of "ecological priority and green development", provinces and cities along the Yangtze River have transformed their development ideas, carefully nurtured the clear water of the river, and worked hard to write a high-quality development answer sheet.
Walking on both sides of the Yangtze River, one can see a picture of lush greenery, soaring birds, and harmonious coexistence between humans and nature everywhere. Nowadays, the main stream of the Yangtze River has maintained Class II water quality for three consecutive years, and riverside parks have connected beautiful ecological corridors. However, ten years ago, some places along the Yangtze River were still lined with chimneys and sewage flowed horizontally.
He traveled to various provinces and cities along the Yangtze River, presided over three symposiums and delivered important speeches, emphasizing the overwhelming importance of restoring the ecological environment of the Yangtze River and setting rules for the development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt; To deeply elucidate the five dialectical relationships of "overall promotion and key breakthroughs", and to guide the high-quality development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt; Furthermore, the strategic mission is to empower the Yangtze River Economic Belt as the main battlefield for ecological priority and green development, to smooth the domestic and international dual circulation arteries, and to lead the main force for high-quality economic development.
The difficulty in managing large rivers lies in the "Nine Dragons Water Control and Self governance" approach. With the concept of "joint efforts for major protection and no major development" deeply ingrained in people's hearts, the joint governance of the Yangtze River Basin has become a consensus. The coordinated governance of "one river, two lakes" in the three provinces of Hubei, Jiangxi, and Hunan, and the establishment of horizontal ecological compensation mechanisms in Zhejiang and Anhui, have transformed shoreline management into the restoration of mountains, rivers, forests, fields, lakes, and grasslands in many areas. In the Chishui River, a primary tributary of the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, the three provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan have implemented unified standards to control pollution emissions and illegal fishing. Some previously elusive fish species have returned to people's sight.
For a long time, the heavy chemical industry along the Yangtze River has been densely laid out. In the past, some places were concerned that excessive rectification efforts would affect fiscal revenue in the short term, and low-quality and inefficient polluting enterprises would always shut down.
Under strict environmental requirements, various regions are reorganizing their industrial chains and cultivating new driving forces. The Changzhou section, which has only 25.8 kilometers of coastline, once gathered more than 120 chemical enterprises. After four rounds of centralized rectification, all low-end chemical enterprises withdrew, leaving space for green space and emerging industries. The increasingly improving ecological environment has even attracted carbon fiber enterprises with strict air quality requirements to settle down, and the layout of Binjiang has been revitalized.
Nowadays, the outdated chemical production capacity within one kilometer of the Yangtze River has been basically eliminated, and new growth points have emerged. A number of emerging industries such as upstream power batteries, midstream electronic grade phosphoric acid, and downstream new materials are rapidly emerging. Three national industrial innovation centers, over 800 national enterprise technology centers, and 30 national strategic emerging industry clusters have formed along the Yangtze River. In 2022, the gross domestic product of the Yangtze River Economic Belt region reached 55.98 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 3.0%, accounting for 46.5% of the national total.
