Nantong looks to Belt and Road for increased development

Nantong in East China’s Jiangsu province will seize fresh opportunities expected from the country’s Belt and Road Initiative to forge new channels of trade and investment cooperation, said a senior official of the city.

“The city has enormous potential for development and is faced with increased opportunities, thanks to its geographic advantages that are magnified by the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road initiatives,” said Ding Dawei, Party chief of Nantong.

“Nantong has worked out new measures in recent years to embrace national development strategies, including the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta, the launch of the Shanghai Free Trade Zone and the Belt and Road Initiative,” Ding said.

The Jiangsu provincial government on May 21 approved a plan to establish a model development zone in the city’s Tongzhou Bay, which would feature synchronized development of industries related to the Yangtze River and the Yellow Sea.

The National Development and Reform Commission, the country’s top economic planner, gave the plan the green light in March.

Tongzhou Bay is a strategic link that connects Nantong with the Yangtze River Economic Belt as well as the countries along the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, Ding said.

Located on the north of the Yangtze River’s mouth to the Yellow Sea, Nantong is an important hub at the junction of the Maritime Silk Road Economic Belt and the Yangtze River Economic Belt.

Nantong Mayor Zhang Guohua (right) and Xu Ningning, executive president of the China-ASEAN Business Council at the signing ceremony of an architecture cooperation memorandum.[Provided to China Daily]

The city’s GDP reached 565 billion yuan ($91.1 billion) by the end of last year, twice the figure in 2009. The revenue of the city government hit 140 billion yuan last year, nearly triple the amount in 2009.

The output value of the city’s six major industries, including ships and heavy equipment, energy, chemical new materials and textiles, surpassed 1 trillion yuan last year. Its emerging industries and high-tech industries accounted for 76.7 percent of the total of large-scale enterprises in the city.

Home to nine provincial economic development zones, the city also boasts six national-level zones for economic development, ranking it third among all the cities in Jiangsu. The zones are situated in Haimen and Rugao, county-level cities under the administration of Nantong, Hai’an county and Tongzhou district.

In 2013, the Haimen and Rugao development zones were promoted as national-level zones. The Nantong High-tech Industrial Development Zone was upgraded into a national-level zone in January 2014.

“Nantong should seek a bigger role in pushing forward the Belt and Road Initiative and building the Yangtze River Economic Belt,” Ding said.

The city needs to expand cooperation with neighboring regions and strengthen exchanges with East Asian and Southeast Asian countries to meet its objectives, he said.

More than 50 percent of enterprises in Nantong do business with counterparts in Shanghai, and 75 percent of foreign exports are transported through Shanghai customs, People’s Daily reported last year.

The city has borrowed experience from the Shanghai Free Trade Zone and adopted six out of 14 pioneering mechanisms in place in that zone.

In September, the city signed an agreement with Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province, on cooperation in such aspects as port logistics and the joint construction of industrial parks.

More than 100,000 people from Nantong work or do business in more than 80 countries around the world, ranking top among Jiangsu’s cities, according to a People’s Daily report in February.

The city’s investment in member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations accounted for nearly 39 percent of the province’s total in ASEAN countries, according to statistics.The city has also built the province’s first overseas industrial park in Indonesia.

In February, Nantong signed an agreement for in-depth cooperation with ASEAN countries in Beijing.

Contact the writers through dongjidong@chinadaily.com.cn