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Tianjin has seen tangible results in transportation, environmental protection, and other industries during the implementation of China’s new Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Coordinated Development Program, authorities say, with construction on infrastructure, railways, highways, airports and seaports picking up speed, as well as transportation projects.
The recently opened Beijing-Tianjin intercity extension shortens the travel time between Beijing’s South Railway Station and Tianjin’s Binhai New Area to less than one hour. The Tianjin–Baoding Intercity Railway has also gone into operation, connecting the core areas of Tianjin and Baoding, Hebei province in less than an hour. There are now 10 land ports in Beijing and Hebei, meaning substantial progress in port integration in the region.
Other achievements can be seen in environmental protection through cooperation in the prevention and control of pollution. Beijing and Hebei have been enforcing the environmental law jointly to combat illegal trans-boundary activities affecting the environment. Controls on coal, dust vehicles, industrial pollution and pollution from new projects have reduced average amounts of PM2.5 concentration by 27.1 percent, while, at the same time, industrial cooperation in the greater region is expanding. In the past two years, Tianjin attracted technology contracts worth more than 10-billion yuan ($1.52 billion) from Beijing, and signed nearly 1,000 technology contracts with Hebei.
Enterprises in Beijing and Hebei have invested more than 323 billion yuan in Tianjin, accounting for more than 40 percent of domestic investment there. Tianjin has set up a number of innovation sites, including Tsinghua University Institute of Top Equipment, Peking University Information Technology Institute, and the Chinese Academy of Science’s Tianjin Intelligent Technology Institute.
Tianjin says that it is trying its best to remove institutional barriers to development, for example, by integrating customs clearances and inspections in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, with customs clearance efficiency increasing dramatically. Cooperation in tourism information is improving to better share tourism resources and markets. The region has also implemented a policy of exempting cell-phone roaming charges and long-distance fees.
