3月30日早间英文播报：Integrated development picks up speed

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A train enters Xiong'an Railway Station,Hebei province, on Dec 27 as the Beijing-Xiong'an Intercity Railway is put touse. [Photo/China Daily]

Beijing-Tianjin-Hebeiregion shows new strength amid Xiong'an's 4th anniversary

When Li Jianhe left his home in Rongcheng county, Hebei province,for the megacity of Beijing in 1996, he was determined he would never go back.

To Li, as a college student at the age of17, the small county－which is about two hours' drive from Beijing－represented backwardness and a lackof opportunity for him, in sharp contrast with the bustling capital.

However, two decades later, he made up hismind to leave Beijing and relocate to his hometown immediately after Chinaannounced the development of a new area in Hebei－the Xiong'an New Area, which spans three counties includingRongcheng－on April 1,2017.

The national significance of the Xiong'anNew Area is on a par with the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone and the ShanghaiPudong New Area.

Li's company, Jingxiong Group, a governmentaffairs service provider, was among the first companies to relocate fromBeijing to Xiong'an two weeks after the new area was set up.

"I made the decision after I derivedconfidence from the determined posture of President Xi Jinping to advance thecoordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region," said Li, whois founder and president of the company.

With Xiong'an set to mark its fourthanniversary on Thursday, a new intercity train has been launched between thenew area and Beijing, and tens of thousands of construction workers are workingon relocation programs, schools and a hospital. A future city is starting totake shape.

The development of Xiong'an is the landmarkplan to coordinate the development of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, a strategy mappedout and carried forward by Xi, who is also general secretary of the CommunistParty of China Central Committee.

"It is no exaggeration to say thatGeneral Secretary Xi is the chief planner for the integrated developmentbetween Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei," said Zhang Jie, a professor ofeconomics and deputy dean at Renmin University of China's Beijing Academy ofDevelopment and Strategy.

The integrated development of the threeneighboring-level areas was elevated to a national strategy in 2014 during asymposium chaired by Xi in Beijing.

While chairing a meeting of the CentralLeading Group for Finance and Economic Affairs in 2015, Xi underscored that thegoal of promoting the coordinated development of the three areas is intended torelieve Beijing of functions nonessential to its role as the capital, adjusteconomic and spatial structures, promote the coordinated growth of the region,and form a new engine of development.

In 2017, Xi made his first inspection tripto Xiong'an, which is at the center of the triangular area formed by Beijing,Tianjin and Hebei's capital, Shijiazhuang, and is designated to undertakefunctions no longer suitable to the capital.

The development of Xiong'an will be crucialfor the next millennium, and the new area must be based on a new concept ofplanning and development and fully carry out the new development philosophy, hesaid in 2019 during his second trip to the area.

Xi underlined the importance of stayingpatient and maintaining the strategic orientation, saying that the planning andbuilding of the new area must proceed with high quality and standards.

He also called for steps to integratemarket elements including people, logistics and information and to promote theintegrated development of information, strengthen the coordinated treatmentprograms for ecological and environmental protection, and enable the sharing ofbasic public services.

Earlyachievements

The integrated development of theBeijing-Tianjin-Hebei region has secured some early outcomes, especially in theintegration of transportation networks.

In addition to the train between Beijingand Xiong'an, a high-speed railway line connecting Beijing and Zhangjiakou, theco-host city of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, also began operating in late2019.

Over the past seven years, a total of 32expressways connecting cities in the region have been opened or expanded,stretching to a length of 2,005 kilometers.

In addition, Li's company has benefitedfrom the integration drive.

His startup has benefited from Xiong'an'sefforts to optimize its business environment, with the government outsourcingservices to the company in areas such as the registration of new businesses andapprovals for market access.

The company offered services to at least1,500 companies that were registered in the new area and saw its turnover jumpto 21 million yuan ($3.2 million) last year. It has also expanded its businessscope from Xiong'an to Beijing's Haidian district, Tianjin and Hebei province.

"The growth of the new area is likethe growing process of a human: It must first learn to crawl before walking andthen competing on a racing track," Li said.

He added that the COVID-19 pandemic has notslowed the process of the area's development. Instead, a slew of landmarkprograms has been completed, and the public is starting to witness moretangible progress in its development.

"For the local residents, it is also aprocess of transitioning from farmers to urban dwellers, and they are startingto find opportunities for employment and starting new businesses," hesaid.

Zhou Jun, the founder and CEO of BeijingEyecool Technology Co Ltd, a company that focuses on the development ofbiometric recognition technology, said the company's business has benefitedfrom the integration of the three provincial-level areas, and especially fromthe development of Xiong'an.

The company relocated its headquarters fromthe capital to Xiong'an in 2018 in the belief that the area will be a smartcity for the future.

"We realized that for artificial intelligencecompanies and the sector as a whole, the development of the new area will be ahistoric opportunity," he said, adding that the company's multimodelbiometric recognition technology fits strongly with the area's need to developa smart city.

The company's technology has so far beenapplied to more than 20 innovation programs in Xiong'an, contributing to thedevelopment of a smart security system, parks, schools, relocation programs andthe containment of COVID-19, he said.

"The building of smart parkingfacilities, street lamps and use of artificial intelligence in various areashas made the city smarter," he said.

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记者：徐伟、张余

播报：AndrewPasek

音频编辑：万月英

原文链接：

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202103/29/WS60610a2fa31024ad0bab2152_1.html