Projects are vessels of economic development. Big and good projects provide support for economic transformation and upgrading.

In recent years, Tianjin firmly grasped big and good projects, attracted investment, created good environment, improved services, promoted big and good projects to start early and finish early. Quality driven economy had a ripple effect on the wider economy and in turn increased economy efficiency.

In the “12th Five-Year Plan” period, Tianjin relied on the introduction of big and good projects to speed up economic restructuring and upgrading, laying a solid foundation for scientific development. Industrial output annual growth rate was about 12%, among the fastest in the nation, topping 3 trillion CNY in 2015. During this period Tianjin introduced multiple advanced manufacturing projects, which have become the city’s pillar industries. The overall level of industrialization has been taken to a higher level, or a “qualitative leap”.

“Three machines, one rocket, one satellite and one station” project has been kicked off. Airbus, helicopters, aerospace technology, aerospace science and industry and other leading enterprises came to Tianjin. This means that Tianjin has become a city with an aviation aerospace industrial base. Not only in aerospace, Tianjin also tapped in the new fields of petrochemical industry, equipment manufacturing, electronic information, biological medicine, new energy and new materials, forming industrial clusters. “Seed projects” such as “Milky Way One”, “Dawn Nebula”, and “100 Million Tons of Ethylene” are driving the continuous extension of advanced manufacturing chain. As of November 2015, 21 Tianjin companies were listed among the “top 500 Chinese manufacturing”, and the city has built eight national new industrialization demonstration bases and produced a number of strategic emerging industrial bases and innovative industrial clusters.

In 2015, the Tianjin Municipal Government approved the “implementation plan on building an advanced manufacturing R&D base in Tianjin (2015-2020)”. The “plan” states that, by 2020, the total industrial output would reach 4 trillion CNY; industrial added value would reach more than 1 trillion CNY; an advanced manufacturing base would be established. By 2025, the city’s industrial output would reach more than 5 trillion CNY, and the advanced manufacturing R&D base would be top notch in China and has an international influence.

In the next five years, Tianjin will focus on fostering aviation equipment, aerospace equipment, integrated circuits and special equipment, high-performance servers and cloud computing, marine engineering equipment and high-tech ships, ultra-high voltage power transmission equipment, large-scale construction machinery, rail transport, high-end CNC machine tools, automatic transmission and other 10 leading high-end industries. Tianjin will expand the production scale of intelligent terminals, basic electronic components, biomedical and health industry. Tianjin will also foster the development of energy-saving and alternative energy vehicles, alternative energy, new materials, robotics, 3D printing, independent operating systems, databases and software that are made in China and other emerging industries, transforming and upgrading the two traditional industries of petrochemistry and metallurgy.

In 2016, Tianjin will focus on promoting the ten projects—“two chemicals”, “two vehicles” and “six key projects” with a total investment of 116.7 billion CNY. “Two chemicals” refers to the investment of 29 billion CNY on Botian Chemical and Dagu Chemical in a bid to remove them from densely populated areas of Hangu and Tanggu Districts and relocate them to Nan’gang Industrial Zone. The relocation would be part of the industrial adjustment and upgrading.

“Two vehicles” refers to the CNY FAW-Volkswagen Automotive project with an investment of 15 billion CNY and the FAW Toyota project with an investment of 5 billion CNY. “Six projects” refers to marine equipment manufacturing R&D with an investment of 17.8 billion CNY, China-made CPU and operating system R&D with an investment of 12.7 billion CNY, sand polycarbonate with an investment of 11 billion CNY, 3D printing and intelligent robot with an investment of 8.4 billion CNY, Saab cars and other alternative energy vehicles with an investment of 7.3 billion CNY, and the manufacturing of Airbus A330 and its parts with an investment of 6.5 billion CNY.

Tianjin strictly adheres to the national policy of promoting investment and steady growth. The city takes great measures to further promote supply-side structural reforms, improve quality and efficiency, speed up the progress of the preparatory work for the project. The city’s fixed assets investment has seen a good start. In the first quarter of 2016, the city’s total number of new projects exceeding 50 million CNY reached 603 and the total investment was well over 300 billion CNY.

“Big” and “good” are the two key words for Tianjin’s economic and structural upgrading. The large aircraft manufacturing, large rockets, and supercomputers are the “big” projects, reflecting a vision for quality and competitiveness; those “good” projects, characterized by green energy and new technologies, abandoned the notion of “development means pollution”.

“Big” project is a shift from extensive growth to intensive growth; “good” project is a shift from general development to a comprehensive, coordinated and sustainable development. With these big and good projects, Tianjin’s industrial quality was greatly enhanced.