In August, five pedestrian streets, including Chongqing's Jiefangbei Pedestrian Street, Chengdu's Kuan Zhai Alley, and Xi'an's Datang Everbright City, were listed among national demonstration pedestrian streets.
A picture of Chongqing's Jiefangbei Pedestrian Street.
In July 2018, Jiefangbei Pedestrian Street was approved to be included in a pilot program of the Ministry of Commerce to upgrade the first batch of 11 pedestrian streets.
During the renovation and upgrading, Yuzhong District insists on planning first and carefully prepares a master plan and three special plans for landscape, traffic, and business types.
Yuzhong District expanded the pedestrian street's total area from 0.92 square kilometers to 1.2 square kilometers and extended the length of the street from 1,000 meters to 1,500 meters. In key areas such as the landscape, traffic, facade, and lighting, the district carried out quality improvement, which led to better hardware and software environment of Jiefangbei.
Chongqing General Trading Group, the largest enterprise in southwest China, is located in Jiefangbei. Besides, the century-old Chongqing Department Store Co., Ltd. lies in its core business circle.
Specifically, Jiefangbei boasts the Metropolitan Oriental Plaza, the first shopping mall in Chongqing, and Maison Mode Times, the city's first luxury mall. In addition, it also gathers a variety of international watch, cosmetic, and apparel brands.
With two years of renovation and the rapid development of the modern service industry, Jiefangbei's hardware and software environment has been greatly improved. Some of the traditional stores familiar to the public are quietly transforming into experience stores, cross-industry stores, concept stores, and variety stores.
To bolster the economy, Jiefangbei Pedestrian Street takes the lead in initiating the economy of first stores, brands, shows, and launches in a bid to make itself the "most fashionable" and "most cutting-edge" commercial pedestrian street.
According to statistics, Jiefangbei Pedestrian Street has renovated a commercial area of 160,000 square meters, introduced 25 "first stores" and "first brands" including the Adidas Brand Center, added 19 new tax refund stores, and held more than 30 activities for first launches and first shows of various kinds.
Last September, Raffles City Chongqing opened its doors, introducing lots of new business types, new brands, and first stores of Chongqing and even southwest China.
With the advent of the 5G big data era, Jiefangbei became the first in Chongqing to build a smart business circle, where a 3D screen can display real-time data like images and visitor flow of all stores in the business circle.
There are now 169 new 5G base stations and 85 upgraded public Wi-Fi kiosks in Jiefangbei. Free public Wi-Fi and 5G signals have covered across the core area of the pedestrian street. Several smart mobile 5G experience centers were built in Jiefangbei, and the city's first 5G call was also made there.