This May will meet the eighteenth anniversary of the establishment of Tianjin Free Trade Zone. The 18 years’ jumped development forged its brilliance; Tianjin Free Trade Zone is jumping onto a new development platform. Entering the free trade zone and airport industrial park, the busy scenes impress us with the vital force of this place that shows the powerful progress of an open area.

By 18 years’ innovations and practice, the three major industries of civil aviation, communication & information, and equipment manufacturing have been initially shaped due to the rapid development of airport industrial park. The free trade zone has realized the development into high-end and high-tech industry, becoming an attractive investment land and economic growth point with dual-advantages of harbor and airport, and dual-favors of free trade zone and development zone.

As an important economic function zone of Binhai New Area, the free trade zone by all its efforts invites and serves investments, holding firmly the project as development focus, investment invitation as regional focus, and tries to make most out of geographical advantages and policy functions, with the scale and ability of foreign investment import being increased. Until today the accumulated import of contracted foreign investment has reached 20-billion dollars and more, and the actually used foreign investment is nearly 9-billion dollars; over 7,000 enterprises have registered here, of which 88 projects are invested by the world top 500 companies.

In 2008 the gross regional product, gross import and export, and used foreign investment amount account for 12.4%, 23.3%, and 29.9% of Binhai New Area respectively. In the first four months of this year the free trade zone implemented the CPC Municipal Committee’s requirement of “keep growth, survive crisis, attain success”, trying best to reduce the negative impact from the financial crisis, and realized a 23.7% economic growth, contributing greatly to the economic development of Binhai New Area and Tianjin.

The leading projects promote the forming of industrial chain; the industrial chain accelerates the clustering of auxiliary projects. A big and good project promotes the rapid development of the three major industries of civil aviation, communication & information, and equipment manufacturing in the free trade zone. Accompanying the construction of Airbus A320 general assembly line project, totally 17 world first-class aeronautical projects including America Goodrich, PPG, France Thales, Zodiac, STTS, Canada FTG, Germany Lufthansa, Spain Indra, AVIC helicopter, Xi’an Aircraft wing general assembly entered the zone, investing totally more than 2-billion dollars.

A development context of aeronautical industry integrating international cooperation and independent innovations, with involved sectors of aircraft general assembly, R&D, parts& components manufacturing, aircraft lease, logistics and service etc., has been formed, enabling the aeronautical industry rapidly become a highlight of industrial development in Tianjin.

The technological development platforms including scientific innovation park and software outsourcing service base have quickened the clustering of high-tech projects and the cultivation of industrial chains. ZTE Communications, Datang Telecom, VIA Technologies, America CSC, Tak Shun Technology, and Isoftstone are the leading companies that promote the rapid progress of communication and information industry.

Meanwhile 30 key enterprises, including Asia Power Systems, Magna Technology& Tooling Systems, Alstom hydropower equipment, Liugong Machine, Xinjiang Tbea, Tianjin Motor Dies, America Oshkosh, and Terex Engineering Machinery, have begun construction and production in sequence; the equipment manufacturing industry is booming. In 2008 the three major industries of the free trade zone have output increase higher than 60%, showing a healthy development trend. It is anticipated that in 2015, the total output of the three major industries will exceed 200-billion Yuan.