New Highlights of Regional Development - Coordinated Development of Beijing Tianjin Hebei | Clear Advantages and Sufficient Confidence Leading | Modernization | Beijing Tianjin Hebei

The modernization and transformation of a port can provide a glimpse into the synergistic development effect of a region over the past nine years.

Last week, the "Beijing CBD Tianjin Port Beijing Tianjin Collaborative Port Service Center" was unveiled and established in Chaoyang District, Beijing, and various enterprises began to "enjoy" various services from Tianjin Port more than 150 kilometers away.

At sea, Tianjin Port's Bohai Rim Inner Branch Line shuttles daily. Bohai Jinji Port Investment and Development Co., Ltd. and Jintang International Container Terminal Co., Ltd. have successively been listed, and ports in Tianjin and Hebei are gradually moving from competition to cooperation.

On the "Colorful" dock of Section C in the North Xinjiang Port Area of Tianjin Port, the new generation of hydrogen electric hybrid artificial intelligence transportation robots are busy under the scorching sun. By relying on wind and solar power supply technologies jointly developed by multiple institutions from the Beijing Tianjin Hebei region, this modern dock has achieved zero carbon emissions.

Optimize resource allocation, reform and break down barriers, collaborative empowerment and innovation... strive to become a pilot and demonstration area for Chinese path to modernization, and the era gives Beijing Tianjin Hebei a new atmosphere for collaborative development.

The picture shows Tianjin Port's fully IoT container terminal. Photo by Zhao Zishuo, journalist from Xinhua News Agency

Resolving and optimizing regional resource allocation

In the scorching summer, the construction of projects in the start-up area of Xiong'an New Area in Hebei Province is in full swing.

Various functional areas such as science parks, university parks, and financial islands are being orderly promoted, with major projects such as the International Trade Center, Sports Center, and Science and Technology Innovation Comprehensive Service Center emerging one after another. At present, central enterprises have established over 150 various institutions in Xiong'an New Area, with over 3000 registered enterprises in Beijing as investment sources.

The construction of Xiong'an New Area and Beijing Urban Sub center, forming the new "two wings" of Beijing, is a millennium long plan and a national event, and is the key to optimizing the allocation of resources in the Beijing Tianjin Hebei region.

The Beijing Tianjin Hebei region covers an area of 216000 square kilometers and has a population of over 100 million. In the past, regional development was unbalanced, and Beijing gathered too many non capital functions, resulting in excessive population expansion and increasing traffic congestion.

In 2014, the coordinated development of the Beijing Tianjin Hebei region became a national strategy, and the orderly evacuation of Beijing's non capital functions became a "bull's nose".

Over the past nine years, Beijing has evacuated approximately 3000 general manufacturing enterprises, and upgraded nearly 1000 regional wholesale markets and logistics centers, with a total transaction volume of over 210 billion yuan for technology contracts flowing to the Tianjin Hebei region. A few years ago, it was still a wholesale market for zoos, and now it is transforming into a national level financial technology demonstration zone.

Within Beijing, the municipal administrative center has officially relocated to the sub center of the city, and the goal of reducing the permanent population of the six districts by 15% compared to 2014 has also been achieved.

The relocation of non capital functions from Beijing has accelerated the construction of Tianjin's national advanced manufacturing research and development base and Hebei's national important modern commercial and logistics base. Tianjin's information infrastructure construction is leading in the country, with three indicators including household gigabit fiber optic network coverage ranking first in the country. The proportion of Hebei's express delivery business in the Beijing Tianjin Hebei region has increased from 30.1% in 2017 to 62.4% in 2022.

At the same time, Beijing's own economic output has also surpassed two major levels: 3 trillion yuan and 4 trillion yuan.

The picture shows the ecological corridor in Wangwenzhuang Town, Xiqing District, Tianjin City. Photo by Zhao Zishuo, journalist from Xinhua News Agency

Reform to break down regional balance barriers

Starting from April 1st this year, insured individuals from the Beijing Tianjin Hebei region can enjoy medical insurance reimbursement benefits by seeking medical treatment and purchasing medicine at designated medical institutions within the region without the need to complete the registration procedures for medical treatment in other regions. The industry has called for the implementation of the "one card access" for cross regional medical treatment for many years, taking the lead in the Beijing Tianjin Hebei region.

In the past, the Beijing Tianjin Hebei region also faced long-term problems of unbalanced and insufficient development. Barriers exist in multiple aspects, and the key to solving these problems is to break down the "three parts per acre" policy.

In June 2015, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council issued the Outline of the Beijing Tianjin Hebei Coordinated Development Plan, outlining a grand blueprint for coordinated development. Afterwards, the "Thirteenth Five Year Plan" for the National Economic and Social Development of Beijing Tianjin Hebei became China's first cross provincial and city regional five-year plan, and the "Beijing Tianjin Hebei Integrated Talent Development Plan" became China's first cross regional talent plan. In addition, there are a series of plans such as transportation integration, ecological environment protection, and industrial upgrading and transfer, which have broken the wall for the balanced development and reform of the three regions.

Under the top-level design, key areas such as transportation, ecology, and industry in the Beijing Tianjin Hebei region have taken the lead in breakthroughs, and the equalization level of basic public services such as education and healthcare continues to improve

"To build a pilot area and demonstration area for Chinese path to modernization, it is not necessary to select a region with large development space, excellent development potential and the ability to take the lead in realizing modernization through exploration in the region with the strongest economic strength and the best mechanism and system at present, so as to provide more demonstration for the whole country," said the person in charge of Tianjin Development and Reform Commission.

The nationwide promotion of two reform cases is a strong proof. On August 1, 2015, mobile roaming fees and long-distance rates between Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei were first cancelled. On September 1, 2017, this policy was implemented nationwide; On July 1, 2014, the integration of customs clearance in the Beijing Tianjin Hebei region was first launched by Beijing Customs and Tianjin Customs. On July 1, 2017, the national customs officially implemented the integration of customs clearance.

The picture shows the automated surface oxidation production line of SMC Manufacturing Co., Ltd., taken on March 1, 2023. Shen Jizhong

Collaborative promotion of regional development levels

Hu Jianlong, 39, summed up his past 9 years in 14 words: "Entrepreneurship and Entrepreneurship in Beijing Tianjin Hebei, a 'Smart' New Farmer from the North.".

In 2014, Hu Jianlong founded Beijing Kexin Technology Co., Ltd., which focuses on agricultural artificial intelligence. In 2018, he moved the company's headquarters to Tianjin Binhai Zhongguancun Science and Technology Park.

Relying on research and development in Beijing and industrialization in Tianjin, Kexin Company has expanded the market of smart agriculture to vast northern regions such as Hebei, Shandong, and Inner Mongolia, with annual sales revenue exceeding 10 million yuan.

This is a case of Beijing Tianjin Hebei coordinated development empowering market entities and assisting the transformation and upgrading of northern regions.

"Realizing coordinated development between Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei is necessary to complement each other's advantages, promote the development of the Bohai Rim Economic Zone, and drive the development of the northern hinterland..." Looking back at the high expectations placed by the central government on Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei in 2014, it is meaningful.

In 2022, the total economic output of the Beijing Tianjin Hebei region exceeded 10 trillion yuan, continuing to become one of the three important driving forces leading high-quality development in the country.

"The coordinated development strategy of Beijing Tianjin Hebei bears the important mission of narrowing the gap between North and South China," said Liu Bingsickle, Dean of the Beijing Tianjin Hebei Collaborative Development Research Institute at Nankai University.

In practice, the advantages of technological innovation in Beijing and advanced manufacturing research and development in Tianjin are closely combined, and Hebei is also building an economic corridor connecting Beijing and Tianjin from different directions.

It can be expected that in the process of building a pilot and demonstration area for Chinese path to modernization, the "tale of two cities" in Beijing and Tianjin will form an interactive guide, and build a world-class city cluster with Hebei, creating a new growth pole for high-quality development in China.