Material for the press conference of the State Council Information Office

Brief Introduction to Tianjin’s Progress in Promoting Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Collaborative Development

(Dec. 10, 2015)

Tianjin Municipal People’s Government

Tianjin’s progress in promoting Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei collaborative development mainly consists of five aspects. 

I. The Outline of Collaborative Development of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei Province has been implemented in an all around way. Immediately after the national plan was issued by the state, the Seventh Plenary Session of the Tenth Tianjin Municipal Party Committee was held, and it worked out Tianjin’s Implementation Program on Executing the Outline of Collaborative Development of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Province to fully embark on various tasks.

II. Infrastructure construction and interconnection have been accelerated. In the sector of railway construction: Beijing-Tianjin Inter-city Express Extension has been completed and opened to traffic. It ensures a one-hour trip from Beijing South Railway Station to Tianjin Yujiapu Railway Station, which is located in the central business district in Tianjin Binhai New Area. Tianjin-Baoding Inter-city Express, upon completion by the end of the year, is expected to provide a shortcut which will ensure a forty-minute trip from Tianjin to Baoding. Furthermore, once Tianjin-Baoding Intercity Express is completed and connected with the existing Beijing-Guangzhou high-speed railway, the journey from Tianjin to Shijiazhuang will be shortened from the present four hours to approximately one and half hours. The preparatory work of Beijing-Binhai Intercity Express is under smooth progression. In the sector of port construction: The Bohai Jinji Port Investment Company was founded and 10 inland dry ports were established in Beijing and Hebei. In the sector of airfield construction: Tianjin Civil Aviation, in an effort to actively serve the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, will finish 20 city-based terminals in the region by the end of the year. New services such as air-rail and truck-air-truck transport will be provided. Tianjin will subsidize the land transportation cost incurred to Beijing or Hebei residents who will take Tianjin airliners, or directly reimburse the expenses incurred to them. The annual throughput capacity of Tianjin Airport is expected to exceed 14 million travelers, a year-on-year growth of 16%. Most of the travelers are from Beijing or Hebei.

III. A joint prevention and management mechanism for coping with ecological environment crises has been being steadily pushed forward. With the in-depth development of the collaborated prevention and control of regional air pollution, Tianjin invested RMB 400 million in support of the air pollution prevention and control programs carried out by the two cities of Cangzhou and Tangshan in Hebei province. The environmental protection departments from Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei province, officially signed the “Co-operation Framework Agreement on First Breakthrough in the Area of Environment Protection in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region,” explicitly emphasizing the effort focused on the prevention and control of the pollution of air, water, and soil, on the basis of the ten major breakouts such as joint legislation, unified rules, unified regulations, unified criteria, and unified monitoring mechanism, and on the principles of joint prevention and control, to achieve the purpose of jointly improving the regional ecological environment. A joint conference was held on the subject of environmental law enforcement and environment emergent responses, launching a linkage mechanism for the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, achieving the purpose of the so-called three unified mechanisms: the unified personnel assignment, the unified law enforcement schedule, and the unified key aspects of law enforcement.

IV. Prominent progress has been made in joint connection of the industries in the three regions. Tianjin has actively been docking itself to Beijing innovation resources and sci-tech achievements, and actively extended our industry chains to Hebei, in a bid to realize industrial integration and linkage development among the three regions. It has been making great efforts to speed up the establishment of key cooperation platforms known as Tianjin Binhai-Zhongguancun Science and Technology Park, Wuqing-based Beijing-Tianjin Industrial New Town, Beijing-Tianjin Demonstration Area of Future Scientific and Technological Town, Baodi-based Beijing-Tianjin Zhongguancun Scientific and Technological Town, as well as the Demonstration Area of Tianjin-Hebei（Shexian County-based Tianjin Iron Plant）Circular Economic Industrial Area, and the Demonstration Area of Tianjin-Hebei (Lutai, Hangu-based) Collaborative Development. From January to October this year, the amount of available investment made in Tianjin by Beijing and Hebei has exceeded RMB 152 billion, accounting for 43% of the total domestic capital available. The projects such as Huatai Automobile Headquarters and the automobile production bases transferred from Beijing to Tianjin have been built. Tianjin enterprises invested in 648 projects based in Hebei, the funds available approximately amounting to RMB 30 billion.   

V. Joint innovation and structural reforms have been deepened. Along with the implementation of the “10-Program” reforms, Tianjin has worked out a plan for the pilot comprehensive innovation reform. With the smooth operation of Tianjin FTA pilot area, more than ten thousand new market entities have been registered. As the cooperation with prestigious universities and research institutions as Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) goes deep, Tianjin has launched city-institution based co-operations in more than 60 projects, and a number of joint innovation platforms such as CAS Research Institute of Intelligent Recognition Technology and High-end Equipment Research Institute affiliated to Tsinghua University, have been established in Tianjin. It has improved talent introduction policies, organized activities known as “Peking University and Tsinghua University Students’ Journey to Tianjin,” and “Express to the Double-Creation Special Zone” established for the youths in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, and worked out the policies known as “Interim Measures for the Administration of ‘Green Card’ Talents in Tianjin” to achieve the purpose of “a green card responsible for management and introduction of talents and professionals.”

For the next step, Tianjin will make great efforts to fully implement five basic development ideas, i.e. being innovative, coordinated, green, open, and sharing, to execute the Outline of Collaborative Development of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei Province, to actively take over the non-capital functions relieved from Beijing, enhance the linkage function of the twin-cities of Beijing and Tianjin, and to serve the development of Hebei province. Tianjin will accelerate the construction of the national advanced research and manufacturing base, the northern international shipping core area, financial innovation and operation demonstration area, and the pilot reform and opening-up  zone. Tianjin will continuously promote breakthroughs in three key sectors, i.e. traffic integration, ecological environmental protection and industrial upgrading and transfer so as to make positive contributions to the new collaborative development of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei province.