Building a two-oriented society in Chang-Zhu-Tan city cluster

On Dec 14, 2007, the National Development and Reform Commission issued a notice for sanctioning Wuhan city cluster and Chang-Zhu-Tan city cluster as the National Comprehensive Supporting Reform Pilot Areas to build a resource conserving and environment friendly society. Chang-Zhu-Tan stands for the three cities in Hunan Province: Changsha, Zhuzhou and Xiangtan. According to the notice approved by the State Council, the Chang-Zhu-Tan City cluster will at last become a national comprehensive supporting pilot area in 25 years.

Overview

The Chang-Zhu-Tan city cluster, consisting of Changsha, Zhuzhou and Xiangtan is located in the northeast of Hunan province and is the joint area of the Beijing-Guangzhou economic belt, Pan Pearl Delta economic zone and the Yangtze River economic belt. It enjoys advantages in traffic conditions. There is less than 40 kilometers between each two of the economic zones. The economic development level of the Chang-Zhu-Tan city cluster is outstanding in Hunan and is therefore the pillar to its economic growth.

In order to bring the urban areas of the three cities together, Hunan provincial government moved its office from the center of Changsha to the south in 2004. Changsha constructed the Furong Road in the south and quickened the construction of road network in the Tianxin District to accelerate the link with Xiangtan and Zhuzhou. Zhuzhou built the Zhuzhou Avenue to link with Xiangtan and Xiangtan reconstructed Shaoshan Avenue and Bantang Avenue to link with Changsha.

At present the three new cities are rising gradually. Depending on the geographical advantages of the new administrative center after the relocation, the three cities will speed up the development of their joint area in order to form a shared urban area and transportation hub. Taking advantage of their strong appeal and radiation functions, the three cities will promote integration.

The three cities have established three state-level development zones and two national industrial bases through resource integration and industrial layout. From 2001 to 2006, the annual average GDP growth rate of the three cities reached 13.6 percent. GDP of Changsha is expected to reach 200 billion yuan ($31.66 billion) for the year of 2007.

The economy of three cities has kept a strong development momentum and its production value amounted to 243.07 billion yuan. This accounts for 39.3 percent of the province in the early three years, with import, export and actual used foreign capital accounting for 60 percent of the province.

Hunan has treated the three cities as a unit and put forward the method of examining responsibility for environment-simultaneous-treatment objectives, as well as established an environmental law-enforcement-supervision branch independent of the three cities.

Since the 10th Five-Year Plan (2001-2005) of Hunan province, GDP of the three cities has increased by nearly 1.5 times and environmental quality has improved. Changsha has become the third state-level Forest City and Zhuzhou removed its previous negative reputation. In May 2007, the Zhuzhou Chemical Industry Group was incorporated into China’s National Salt Industry Corporation and began healthy development.

Strategic layout According to the Chang-Zhu-Tan City Cluster Area Planning released by Hunan provincial government, the three cities are to construct a Changsha primary urban area, Xiangtan and Zhuzhou secondary urban area and an ecological green core area in their middle. Changsha urban area is accentuated as the (north) core of the cores. The net-shaped urban area is relatively perfect in composition and development and the regional infrastructure network develops well.

An outline of the 11th Five-year Plan (2006-2010) for Hunan provincial economy and social development is as follows: to further promote the prior development of Chang-Zhu-Tan by strengthening the practice and project-construction of the Chang-Zhu-Tan economic integration and by establishing provincial high-tech development zones, advanced manufacturing industrial development zones, large enterprise cluster areas and strategic cooperation zones.

In accordance with the plan, during the five years, the urbanization level reached over 57 percent, and the 3+5 city cluster was developed. (3+5 city cluster refers to the cluster of Yueyang, Changde, Yiyang, Loudi and Hengyang, centered Chang-Zhu-Tan with a radius of one-hour commute.)

(1) Building a resource-conserving society

Promoting economical utilization of energy and non-renewable resources and the development of a circular economy would ensure proper utilization of resources.

--Proper exploitation of resources

Direction: To strengthen the guidance of the government, innovate economy patterns, spread economy technology and improve resources utilization efficiency

Focus:

1) To optimize industrial structure and decrease high energy-consuming industries; accept structural energy-savings by developing and spreading energy-efficient technologies; realizing technological energy-savings by strengthening system construction, supervision and management in resource exploitation, production, transportation and consumption; realize management energy-saving; popularizing such key energy-saving projects as energy-saving construction and green illumination; by paying close attention to key high energy-consuming enterprises and industries like steel, nonferrous metals, electric power and traffic to guide businesses and civil trades in energy-saving; by enforcing the energy-saving laws and the energy consumption standards to improve relevant policies and mechanisms;

2) To strengthen minerals-saving by regulating mineral resource exploitation; strengthening qualification authentication and permit management, and forbidding unauthorized mining, making comprehensive use of poor minerals, tailings, para-genetic and associated minerals, guiding and encouraging finer processing of minerals, controlling ordinary mining, ore-dressing and export of raw minerals;

3) To strengthen water-savings by making and changing industrial water consumption quota, popularizing water-saving devices, apparatuses and technology; reconstructing water-savings in large- and medium-scaled irrigated areas and urban water distribution networks and starting water-saving projects;

4) To save land by efficiently protecting and using national land resources, strictly controlling the increase in non-agricultural land, and efficiently using the available land; reclaiming land discarded by factories and mines and encouraging arrangement of discarded rural land; by developing urban land-saving houses and public buildings;

5) To strengthen capitalized management of forest resources by exploring and establishing mechanisms for paid use and proper compensation of forest resources;

6) To spread efficient use of wood, cement and metal materials by prohibiting nonfunctional excessive packing, regulating and reducing production and use of disposable products.

--Development of circular economy

Direction: with the purpose of reduction, reuse and recycle and taking the improvement of resource utilization rate as its core, pay attention to resources-saving and pollution-reducing in all aspects in production and life.

Focus:

1) To strengthen the management of production in key industries such as metallurgy, nonferrous metal, coal, power, chemical, building material, paper-making industries and intensify technological innovation to help save energy;

2) To establish circular economic industrial parks to expand the link among industries, enterprises, industry chains, and product chains;

3) To develop scrap recycling markets and support the recycling of scrap metals, domestic appliances, computers, batteries and other electronic products;

4) To attach importance to the experimental circular economy cities like Miluo, Yongxing and Yiyang, as well as explore developing patterns for a circular economy;

5) To improve the fiscal and tax policies for developing a circular economy, and establish charge systems for recycling all kinds of effluents;

6) To strengthen safe treatment of non-recyclable waste to reduce environmental pollution.

1. Electric power planning

During the planning period, five power plants are to be built and enlarged in Chang- Zhu-Tan. At the same time the power groups that are not corresponding with the national industrial policies will be eliminated.

2. Grid planning

1) 500 KW by 2020, 11 500kV substations with the main substation's capacity of about 19 million kV will have been built in Chang-Zhu-Tan.

2) 220 KW. The capacity of the main transformer in the 220KW substation has been equipped with a ratio of 1.85 of power capacity to load. The total capacity amounts to about 14,000,000 kV with about 40 substations. In the long term, the main transformer capacity is equipped with the ratio of 1.75 and the total capacity reaches about 26,300,000 KW with about 60 substations.

The 220 KW power grid is arranged in the form of ring network plus radiation and a 220 KW double-ring network is formed in the urban areas of Chang-Zhu-Tan. 3) Power-transmission line corridor

The 500kv line should stretch, in principle, out of building land in town planning with each single line corridor 60-75 meters wide. The 220kv line with the single line corridor 30-40 meters wide may stretch into the internal urban areas due to need. The relations between the line corridor and surrounding land should be coordinated and the line can not go through the streets obliquely.

3. Natural gas

According to the project of transmitting gas from Sichuan to Hunan, a natural gas transmission system is to be built in Chang-Zhu-Tan area.

4. Liquefied natural gas

Changsha, Zhuzhou, Xiangtan and Liling will maintain the present liquefied natural gas storage and filling equipment. Small and medium-sized cities like Xiangxiang and Shaoshan will have storage of an additional 20,000-30,000 ton and filling equipment per year.

5. Water providing

Water source cities will still have Xiang River as their water source and water is considered to be transferred to near reservoirs in a proper period. Multi-source water providing systems are to be formed. Reservoirs like Shuihumiao, Zhushuqiao and Guanzhuang serving as water-sources of cities are to be strictly protected. New water systems are realized by enlarging present water works. Among the present 18 water works, 15 are to be reserved and 7 are enlarged with a new water-providing capacity of 1,025,000 tons per day. In the future, 5 new water works are to be built with the capacity of 1,870,000 tons per day.

6. Water source protection

The first-grade urban drinking water source protection zone, specified by the water works, ranges from 1000 meters upstream to 200 meters downstream (100 meters downstream for a few water works) including certain land by the banks. A certain range beyond the zone is considered the second-grade protection zone.

(2)Building an environment-friendly society

Putting equal stress on ecological protection, pollution prevention and treatment and strengthening supervision and comprehensive treatment would accelerate building an environment friendly society.

--Ecological construction

Direction: To stick to the principles of prior protection and natural recovery, practice limited, orderly and compensated development, reinforce natural ecological protection and reverse the tendency of ecological deterioration from the root causes.

Focus: To build ecological projects such as the protection of ecological and commonweal forests and the conversion of farmland to forests; strengthen the ecological construction in the western Hunan; practice controlled protection and intensify soil erosion treatment in important ecological functional areas like key water conservation areas and soil erosion prevention areas-nature reserves, scenic spots, forest parks, drinking water source areas, wet areas of Dongting Lake, the upstream of four rivers in Hunan; and tighten the ecological environmental protection of mines and establish an ecological compensation system on the principle of who develops protects and who benefits compensates.

---Environmental protection

Direction: To make great efforts to solve the conspicuous problems that affects economic and social development and harm people's health and safety; and tighten the prevention and treatment of air and water pollution control in urban and rural areas to improve environmental quality. Focus:

1) To advance prevention and treatment of air and water pollution by strengthening the treatment of sulfur dioxide in coal-burning power plants; and by controlling pollution in main rivers such as Xiangjiang River and Tongting Lake and strengthening pollution treatment in industrial and mining areas such as Qingshuitang in Zhuzhou, Zhufugang (Yuetang) in Xiangtan, Shuikoushan in Hengyang, Sanchaji in Changsha and Huayuan in Western Hunan;

2) To promote the industrialization and marketing of the urban waste water and garbage; improve waste water treatment rate; properly deal with domestic garbage, medicine wastes and hazardous wastes, and strengthen pollution control in towns;

3) To develop ecological and organic agriculture and control pollution resulting from improper use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides;

4) To conduct a comprehensive management of key mining areas, accelerate recovery of environment in mining areas and reinforce law enforcement;

5) To intensify publicity and education concerning environmental protection to raise public awareness;

6) To strengthen protection of wild animals and plants to maintain biodiversity;

7) To improve local laws and regulations of environmental protection and reinforce supervision of law enforcement.

1. Urban greening Emphasis should be put on the following planning according to the present condition of urban greening and the systematic structural features of green land: 1) Establish a forest protection system in urban areas with a blueprint of an overall urban plan and an urban forest ecological environment plan.

2) Construct the greening system along the Xiangjiang River in the urban areas so that the section of the river in Changsha urban area becomes the ecological green corridor between the west river groups and the central urban area. Establish green corridors along the Beijing-Zhuzhou Expressway, Beijing-Guangzhou Railway, Changsha-Xiangtan Road and the Liancheng Road and build a greening system surrounding the places of relics and along the urban streets, selecting and planting the right type of trees.

Forbid cutting forests and damaging woods and strengthen the protection of natural forest resources and raw vegetation, which should be treated in the same way as nature reserves, forest parks and scenic spots. Optimize wood variety structure and composition, develop economic woods, water conservation forests and scenic woods and reduce woods for material use. Pay attention to the problem of soil erosion when cultivating hillside land and forbid cultivating mountainous and hilly areas easy to cause soil erosion.

Plant all waste hills or unclaimed lands suitable for afforestation and convert the low farmland into lakes. Replace vertical farming with horizontal farming, alternate between farming and growing woods and develop produces with high quality and characteristics. Take project and biological measures in key areas of soil erosion.

2. Atmospheric environment

Adjust the energy structure by introducing high-quality energy such as natural gas, increase the proportion of electric power in energy structure, decrease coal consumption, strengthen the treatment of heavy air pollution and make efforts in pollution treatment according to the national regulations.

3. Water environment

Functions of waters environment in Chang-Zhu-Tan area are divided into 9 categories; first-grade drinking water source protection zones and nature protection zones are to be controlled by II-water body standard (Surface Water Environment Quality Standard, GB3838-2002, the same below) and others by III-V water body standard. Specific water environment protection measures are as follows: 1) Strengthen the collection and treatment of urban domestic sewage.

2) Properly arrange sewage treatment factories and drainage vents.

3) Properly make industrial wastewater drainage standards.

4. Solid waste collection and treatment

Solid waste collection and treatment in Chan-Zhu-Tan area should stick to the principle of “recycling, reuse and reduction” treatment, popularize classified collection, recycle and use resources fully. Objectives

By 2010, energy consumption per 10,000 yuan of GDP decreased by 20 percent, the comprehensive recovery rate of the mineral resources increased to 48 percent and the total amount of cultivated land reached 3,772,000 hectares. The installed power generation capacity came to 4,100,000 KW with local power accounting for about 55 percent of the load need. The rate of urban waste water treatment reached no less than 70 percent.

Recycling treatment rate of the urban domestic garbage was no less than 60 percent. The treatment rate of discarded waste was 75 percent, the control rate of the industrial waste gas discharge was 90 percent and that of industrial waste water discharge was 85 percent. Agricultural pollution is effectively controlled in the 11th Five-Year Plan period. New soil erosion treatment areas will come to 6000 square kilometers and farmland for non-agricultural use will been controlled within 18,000 hectares.

By 2020, the installed power generation capacity will have come to about 9,500,000 KW with local power accounting for about 55 percent of the load need. Public water capacity in cities that are in a planning stage increased from 2,445,000 tons per day (2000) to 5,350,000 tons per day.

There were 3,130,000 tons per day in Changsha, 1,200,000 in Zhuzhou and 980,000 in Xiangtan. Waste water treatment rates in cities amounted to 85 percent. The comprehensive utilization rate of industrial solid waste increased from 71.44 percent to 90 percent above and domestic garbage should have been given recycled treatment.

The Chang-Zhu-Tan city cluster tried to achieve the goal of 32,000-yuan GDP per capita in 2010 By 2020, Chang-Zhu-Tan city cluster is expected to become an important modern and ecological city cluster with appropriate space layout, sound urban functions, perfect infrastructure, clear industrial characteristics and a beautiful living environment.

GDP per capita in the three cities will reach 80,000 yuan with the population of 10,000,000 in the core of the cluster. Therefore, Chang-Zhu-Tan city cluster will become a new national economic growth pole and a good example of a resource-conserving and environment-friendly city cluster.

Prospects

It's an important national arrangement and a strategic layout for Chang-Zhu-Tan city cluster to be sanctioned as a national resource-conserving and environment-friendly society. Attention to the city cluster will rapidly increase and its role as a pole of economic growth will soon be greatly strengthened.

More science and technology, investment, talents and education at home and abroad will be introduced into the projects for building a two-oriented society in the city cluster. Industrialization will be realized from the following three aspects: first, to speed up the development of high-tech industries. New materials, biological medicine and electronic information can overtake those in developed areas if they are further improved.

Second, to reconstruct industries in Hunan such as heavy machinery, iron and steel, automobile, oil chemistry, and building materials to form advanced manufacturing industries.

Third, to reform traditional agriculture with industrialization and practice agricultural industrialization by developing a specialized, garden-style cultivated, standardized, mechanized, ordered, highly efficient modern agriculture and food industry.

Chang-Zhu-Tan city cluster has to be integrated with other five surrounding cities--- Hengyang, Loudi, Yueyang, Yiyang and Changde to be complementary to each other and planned as a whole. By doing that, a new industrialized city cluster belt, associated with Guangzhou to the south, Wuhan to the north, Chongqin to the west and Shanghai to the east, will be formed and be able to drive the economic development of Hunan province to leapfrog.

Chang-Zhu-Tan is a reform vehicle with great potential, a great opportunity and strong driving force for building a modern pole of economic growth in Hunan-Chang-Zhu-Tan 3+5 City Cluster Belt.

By 2020, the urbanization level of the Chang-Zhu-Tan area will range from 60 percent to 62 percent. The population in the core covering an area of 4,500 square kilometers will go from 7,000,000 to 7,500,000. GDP per capita will amount to 80,000 yuan, and the Chang-Zhu-Tan area will become one of the most important grouped super-urbanized areas in central China.