By Rui Hu, EDITOR
In an article written by Chen Min`er, the Secretary of the CPC Chongqing Municipal Committee, and Tang Liangzhi, the Mayor of Chongqing Municipal People’s Governmentpublished on the People's Daily, the municipal government shows a strong confidence in building up a competitive business enviornment. Over the 70 years since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, notably including the years after the reform and opening up, people of Chongqing have experienced a magnificent journey and witnessed remarkable changes of both Sichuan and Chongqing. In 2018, the city recorded a GDP of over 2 trillion RMB and a GDP per capita of approximately USD 10,000, respectively 11.3 times and 10.5 times that in the first year when it became a municipality. This is as calculated at comparable prices, and the per capita disposable incomes of urban and rural residents in 2018 were six and eight times that in the first year of becoming a municipality.
people of Chongqing have experienced a magnificent journey and witnessed remarkable changes
Currently, like every other part of the country, Chongqing is advancing towards a high-quality development period from the high-speed growth period. Although some indicators of economic development are declining, the city keeps growing in the rising trend of high-quality development. We have firmly established and implemented the new development philosophy. With great efforts in high quality, supply-side structure, and intelligence, we are committed to stabilizing economic fundamentals and fostering new sources of growth. At present, supply-side structure reform is taken as the fundamental solution to boosting high-quality development. To facilitate the construction of a competitive and sustainable modern industrial system, pillar industries such as automotive and electronics should be consolidated; strategic emerging sectors including the Internet of Things (IoT), bio-medicine and integrated circuit should be expanded; and modern service businesses such as finance, logistics, and convention & exhibition should be optimized and strengthened. In 2018, Chongqing saw the value-added growing by 13.1% and 13.7% in strategic emerging industries and high-tech industry, as well as a contribution of over 70% in economic growth from the service industry. Big Data Intelligence innovation is a strategic choice to push high-quality development. That means we should highlight R & D innovation and turn industry chains into industry clusters at the same time. We should also promote digital industrialization and industrial digitalization and advance intelligent manufacturing and smart city construction, to empower the economy and facilitate people’s life with intelligence technology. Last year, the intelligence industry rose by 19.2%, with the digital economy reaching the value-added rate of 21.4% in GDP. As a city that integrates metropolis, large villages, vast mountainous areas, and large reservoir areas, Chongqing shoulders an onerous task to achieve coordinated development. In this case, urban-rural integrated development becomes an internal impetus to boost high-quality growth. That means we should improve our classified guidance to the metropolitan area in downtown Chongqing, the town clusters at the Three Gorges Reservoir in the northeast of Chongqing and the town clusters of Wuling mountainous area in the southeast. By this means, we can drive an integrated development of the Chengdu-Chongqing city cluster and intensify the integration of rural and urban areas during development.
Chongqing is endowed with locational advantage as an important strategic point of the Large-scale Western Development and a place linking the Belt and Road and the Yangtze River Economic Belt. It has fully been integrated into the co-construction of the Belt and Road Initiative and Yangtze River Economic Belt, promoted the inland opening-up in an all-around way, and strived to play as a leader and an enabler in the opening-up of Western China. Chongqing also focuses on developing the multimodal transport of railway, road, water, and air toward its four main directions, strengthening the construction of channels to other provinces and foreign countries in an all-round way and accelerating the building of the inland international logistics hub. The cargo value of Chongqing China-Europe freight trains has topped in China. Trains of the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor (ILSTC) will realize regular run per day, with basically-balanced imports and exports, and it has seen a total of over 1,000 trips of trains. The city will also be committed to building a leading open platform. Currently, the China-Singapore (Chongqing) Demonstration Initiative on Strategic Connectivity has been advanced stably, the construction of the pilot free trade zone has achieved a remarkable result, the opening function of Liangjiang New Area has been strengthened, and the management system of Chongqing Hi-Tech Industry Development Zone and Economic and Technological Development Zone are optimizing. In 2018, the total import and export volume around Chongqing surged by 15.9%.
Protecting the Yangtze River and the Three Gorges Reservoir Region is crucial to the long-term development of Chongqing and the overall development of China. We need to remember and practice the theory that “lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets” and sincerely implement both the industrial ecologization and ecological industrialization to beautify Chongqing’s mountains and waters and well balance the prosperity of people and the charm of the eco-environment. The policy of champion environmental protection and eschew large-scale development will be thoroughly implemented, and the upstream consciousness be strengthened. Chongqing will also shoulder its responsibility as an upstream city of the Yangtze River to protect and preserve the eco-environment systematically and underpin the foundation of the essential eco-security shields based on the holistic approach to conserving our mountains, rivers, forests, farmlands, lakes, and grasslands. It will also focus on the four aspects of “in waters,” “on mountains,” “in the air,” and “underground” and fight the battle against pollutions and strive to solve noticeable problems from the public. It takes “seeking harmony between man and nature” as the value pursuit and “realizing the unity of knowledge and action” as the goal to develop green industries, builds green hometown, constructs green system, fosters green culture, and explores new ways of highlighting eco-environment protection and green development. In 2018, the stem stream of Yangtze River at the Chongqing section had excellent water quality, and the city’s forest coverage rate reached 48.3%. There were 316 days with sound air quality because Chongqing highlights eco-environment protection and green development.
Our goal is to help our people realize their aspirations for a better life. Chongqing is determined to win the battle against poverty and implement the “double leader” system in its anti-poverty teams. Twenty-two municipal leaders have been allocated to 18 targeted extreme poverty villages and townships to ensure people can suffer no shortage of food and clothing and have access to compulsory education, basic healthcare, and safe housing. At the end of last year, 1.712 million people got rid of poverty, and the incidence of poverty reduced to 0.7%. Relevant departments of Chongqing have started from specific works and enhanced the efforts in livelihood projects, with 15 related practical tasks done annually with a rolling plan. Last year, people’s livelihood expenditure of Chongqing was around 80% of the local general public budget expenditure. Chongqing will promote culture to improve itself and benefit its people, popularize the cultural tourism brand of “A Tour in Chongqing, A Gain in Vision,” for better satisfying people’s ever-growing demands on intellectual and artistic lives. It will also prevent and solve significant risks, coordinate safety production, and food and drug safety, and prevent major natural disasters, thus maintaining social harmony and stability.
Source: People`s Daily
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