Capital throws weight behind development with close neighbors

Beijing has joined hands with Tianjin and Hebei to make the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region a pacesetter for regional opening-up in China since the China (Beijing) Pilot Free Trade Zone was inaugurated in September 2020.

In early 2014, China initiated a strategy to coordinate the development of the three places to create a model with a better economic structure, cleaner environment and improved public services. The region in North China covers a total area of about 218,000 square kilometers.

In a bid to create a more convenient free trade and investment environment, the Chinese capital has integrated institutional innovation into the coordinated development of the region via the joint building of mechanisms, promotion of innovation, exchange of resources and sharing of services and platforms.

In 2020, the Jingjinji National Center of Technology Innovation was established, the first of its kind in China that appeals mainly to Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei province. Its headquarters in Beijing's Haidian district focuses on professional aspects to develop original technologies with prestigious domestic and foreign universities.

Its subcenters in Tianjin and Hebei highlight the needs of key technologies in the industrial chain with enterprises and research institutes, and promote industrial upgrading.

Up to now, the center has implemented more than 200 sci-tech research projects, of which more than 60 percent have been put into use.

LTHPC is one of the first companies the center has invested into in the Yanjiao High-Tech Industrial Development Zone in Hebei province. Based in Beijing, the company focuses on building high-performance computing clusters, developing big data, deep learning, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and other software and hardware products.

At the Yanjiao development zone, the company's intelligent production line of computing products is run. Servers produced there will help to upgrade China's digital economy, industrial insiders said.

Unique in its interprovincial status, Beijing Daxing International Airport Comprehensive Bonded Zone covers an area of 4.35 sq km and enjoys trade preferential policies of Beijing and Hebei, playing an important role in driving the development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.

Official statistics showed that the bonded zone's total import and export value reached about 358 million yuan ($50.1 million) by the end of 2022. In the first quarter of 2023, its import and export value totaled 87.96 million yuan.

In the future, with the support of the bonded zone's special regulatory policies and innovative management mechanisms, more enterprises will grow their regional resource allocation and the exchange of goods, services and other elements with overseas markets, so as to empower the coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, local officials said.

To better unlock market vitality, the region has made continuous efforts to promote government services interprovincially to bring convenience to companies and individuals.

Since 2021, pilot free trade zones in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region have launched four batches of 179 approval items with the same name and application materials, as well as aligned operational standards and processing times.

For example, if a Beijing resident wants to set up a new company in Tianjin, he or she can finish approval procedures of a business license and other required papers at a government service center in Beijing's Tongzhou district.

The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region has also promoted a series of innovative achievements. For example, the mutual recognition of high-tech enterprises' qualifications, and the joint construction and sharing of measurement technology standards, so as to push the open economy to a new level.

haonan@chinadaily.com.cn