“Over the past year, Chongqing’s relevant departments and Sichuan have signed 236 cooperation agreements to coordinate a number of reform projects.” Huang Chaoyong, Deputy Secretary-General of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Chongqing Municipal Committee and Executive Deputy Director of the Reform Office of the CPC Chongqing Municipal Committee said.

On April 1, the Information Office of Chongqing Municipal People’s Government held a press conference to introduce the Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle's construction.

At the press conference, Huang Chaoyong introduced, “Since the Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle construction was first proposed as a national strategy on January 3, 2020, Chongqing has implemented many measures to strengthen the coordinated development of Sichuan and Chongqing. As for now, Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle has entered ‘the fast lane’,  its construction sped up, and it also provides a strong impetus for building a new development pattern.”

Besides, Sichuan and Chongqing have proposed 11 major reforms, including establishing and improving the Sichuan-Chongqing collaborative innovation system, which has achieved breakthroughs in cross-provincial coordinated reform across the country.

In addition, a number of cross-provincial reforms in Sichuan and Chongqing are at the forefront of the country. "There is no precedent for cross-provincial reform coordination," Huang Chaoyong said. Sichuan and Chongqing focused on the most difficult points, promoted the overall reform with key breakthroughs, and established the country's first cross-administrative regional foreign-invested enterprise complaint handling coordination mechanism.

It has been more than a year since the construction of the Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle has been promoted. For the general public, what are the relevant measures and changes?

Huang Chaoyong said that the two places jointly established the Sichuan-Chongqing Free Trade Pilot Zone Cooperative Opening-up Demonstration Zone and put forward 50 key issues. What’s more, Sichuan and Chongqing jointly expand the scope and depth of "cross-provincial service" and implement two batches of 210 Sichuan-Chongqing general service lists involving civil affairs, taxation, transportation, and commerce in 23 industry sectors. The total amount of documents handled has exceeded 1.2 million.

Sichuan and Chongqing jointly set up a 30-billion-yuan development fund for the Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle and a 5 billion yuan (first phase 1 billion yuan) science and technology innovation funds to focus on supporting major projects of industrial linkage and innovation and collaboration.

In terms of science and education, Sichuan and Chongqing have established the Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle science and technology innovation alliance to promote the construction of 3 collaborative innovation centers and one key laboratory in Sichuan-Chongqing universities. The twin cities also established 26 educational cooperation alliances, built four vocational education groups, and promoted in-depth cooperation in more than 60 disciplines of universities in the two places.