Unexpected Huge Transformations Witnessed in Tianfu New Area after Four Years of High-Quality Development

Tianfu New Area.

Tianfu New Area, despite of being established only four years ago, has already put on tremendous transformations after developing with both quality and quantity as a core area of innovative growth.

Tianfu New Area is located in the hilly area to the southeast of downtown Chengdu, where there are abundant ecological resources such as the Sancha Lake, Longquan Lake, Minjiang River and Longquan Mountain.

In October 2014, Tianfu New Area was officially approved as a national new area, given its influence on Sichuan and Chongqing as well as its role of leading the growth of the whole western China. It has also displayed huge potential for the future development as a highland of economic openness in hinterland China. Tianfu New Area, with an overall planned area of 1578 square kilometers, is curdled by a mountain and two beautiful lakes.

The positioning of Tianfu New Area has taken a quiet change after four years of high quality growth.

February 11th, 2018 was a special day for Tianfu New Area. Just before China’s lunar new year, general secretary Xi Jinping made a visit and learnt about the ecological management of Xinglong Lake, the planning of the industries along the lake, and the development of China (Sichuan) Pilot Free Trade Area. After the visit, Xi Jinping pointed out that Tianfu New Area is deemed as an important anchor for the development of the Belt and Road initiative and the Yangtze River Economic Belt. Therefore, it must be planned and built in a well-thought manner by highlighting its unique features and taking into consideration its ecological values, thus creating a new growth pole, and building it into a high ground for opening up in hinterland China.” Four years ago, in the “Master Plan for Sichuan Tianfu New Area”, this place was positioned as the most dynamic new type of growth pole in western China. The recent remarks by general secretary Xi mark an even higher strategic importance attached to the development of Tianfu New Area, according to which Tianfu New Area will gear up for a bigger vision into the future. It has all the confidence to fulfill such expectation. As of 2017, the GDP of Tianfu New Area reached 784.33 billion yuan, registering an annual growth rate of 8.7%; its accumulated fixed assets investment was 653.41 billion yuan, up by 18.5% annually. By the same year, Tianfu New Area already boasted one industry with over 100-billion-yuan output value, and eight industries with over 10-billion-yuan output value and its economic aggregate ranked 5th out of the 19 national new areas.

The main person in charge of the Chengdu Party Work Committee of Tianfu New Area pointed out that Belt and Road as well as the Yangtze River Economic Belt development are profoundly changing the role and position of the landlocked western China in the global geo-economic landscape, bringing historical and new opportunities to the coordinated development of the west, east and central China. Tianfu New Area, at the focal point of Chengdu city, Sichuan province and the whole nation, must assume the role of pioneering national new areas and contributing to the development of the whole country and nation. With four years since its inception, Tianfu New Area realized the huge transformation from scratch into the core area for innovative development with both high quantity and quality.

Nowadays, if you drive southward into the Tianfu New Area on the Tianfu Avenue, the central axle of Chengdu, you would pass through a number of areas with dense industrial allocations, such as the Tianfu Center, Xinglong Lake, and Luxi Smart Valley. Just when you are wondering whether you are driving in the CBD of the greener version of Beijing, Shanghai or Guangzhou, you suddenly realize you’re already amidst the hi-tech ecological green resort. The gentle and moist breeze massaging your face is the another most direct impression left on the general public left by the Tianfu New Area.

According to the knowledge, when the building of Tianfu New Area was first started, it was decided that the overall development of the area needs to be wisely planned so that ecology is not compromised when the economy is moving fast forward. There would be appropriate zonings for production, living and ecology based on the water courses, terrains, and industrial strengths. The city should be multi-centered, ecological, and able to accommodate industrial clusters. 70% of the city tapestry should be covered in green and blue. Prospective development intensity should be controlled within 30%, which coincides with the plan of Xiong’an New Area. Tianfu New Area focuses on the people-oriented development instead of the extensive growth, which is very forward looking. Thanks to this strategy, Tianfu New Area, with two rivers encircling the city, cozy climate, and the natural vegetations and booming blossoms throughout the year, seized the first opportunity of developing the Park City when the concept was proposed by general secretary Xi Jinping.

In order to consolidate the ecological foundation, optimize space allocation, shape a city that harmonizes human activities and nature, and build a beautiful community that integrates people, city, nature, and industries, Tianfu New Area largely sped up the building of the Park City. Xinglong lake, known as the ecological kidney of the Tianfu New Area, has now accomplished the water storage process with the total surface water area of up to 3 million square meters, attracting a large number of gull herons and birds. Adjacent to it is Luxi River Ecological Area, another ecological business card for Tianfu New Area, with water flowing from Fu River, a tributary of the Dujiangyan water system. Among the ancient trees, and gardens are the apartments for the talents; The Tianfu Park, which is equivalent to 228 football fields, has also been built and opened to the public. As the first waterfront mountain terrain city park in Chengdu, Tianfu park has now become a camping place and talking topic for the citizens.

There would be in total 22 transit lines with a mileage of up to 560 kilometers in the core zone of Tianfu New Area. People will be able to find a metro station every 800 meters and reach anywhere in the area within 15 minutes. In order to elevate the green life quality for the citizens, 1200 kilometers of green lane system and 150 kilometers of underground utilidor will be built. According to the plan of Tianfu New Area Chengdu Management Committee, within the next four years and by 2022, the Tianfu Park City should have already taken an initial shape, in which greeneries, waters and parks could be easily accessible by anyone from anywhere.

Along the Tianfu avenue, you can find many billboards saying that the green mountains are gold mountains and talents are the most important resource. Indeed, it takes not only a livable environment but also talents and technologies to enable the development of a new city.

Talents are the lifeline for Tianfu New Area. Industrial clusters are conducive to the gathering of talents, which in turn drives the development of the industrial clusters. We have set up a 1-billion-yuan special fund for the talent development and established a system offering subsidies ranging from 50 thousand to 100 million yuan to 13 types of talents of 5 different levels. In 2017, for the first time, we credentialed 707 Tianfu talents, whose 33 projects were funded with a total subsidy of 173 million yuan. We are speeding up the construction of 5000 talent apartments and 424 industrial park affiliated apartments, offering the talents accommodations with convenient transportation network, good living amenities and easy access to public service. What’s more, we are picking up the pace of promoting the use of Tianfu talent card which is a physical card used for governance, entrepreneurship and lifestyle services. In this way, we are able to cater to the demands of the talents in a more scientific, systematic and unique way. Up to now, the core district of Tianfu New Area has attracted 219 top notch talents, who are on the lists of the national, provincial and Chengdu municipal "thousand-talent recruitment projects". We independently nurtured 2 talents for the national "thousand-talent project", 44 experts for the provincial and municipal talent projects, as well as 4 top notch talent teams. Close to 100 thousand young people newly settled in this area, of which up to 12% hold postgraduate or PhD degrees, and more than 1100 are returned talents from the US, Germany and other countries. A sound momentum has been built for the talent gathering in this place which is driving the rise of more unicorn companies here.

Founded in 2014, Chengdu Hermes Technology, a professional avionics system supplier and 3D visual cloud operator, has now been listed on the main board in the stock market instead of issuing shares only at SME board. It has become one of the earliest enterprises in the Tianfu New Area to galvanize the power of the financial market. Its stellar products, wireless charging cradle and the wireless e-charging at the receiving end, achieved more than 30 independent R&D patents, and are expected to bring more than 300 million revenues to the company in 2018. As of 2017, Chengdu Tianfu New Area Investment Group, which was founded in 2013, had invested a total of over 100 billion yuan; with a focus on the energy Internet technology, Tsinghua University Energy Internet Research Institute served as a magnet, attracting many elite startup teams from Tsinghua, Stanford, Qualcomm etc. to carry out innovative research on the source, network, charge load and storage of energy.

In addition to the locally bred unicorns, Tianfu New Area has put huge efforts to attract more unicorns from elsewhere by building a unicorn island as an industrial carrier aiming at incubating and nurturing unicorn companies, registering a first in the world. SenseTime, a leading cutting-edge artificial intelligence company, decided to invest in the SenseTime Future Innovation Center and the Belt and Road Headquarter Project in Tianfu New Area; ARM (China) plans to build Arm Integrated Circuit Design Service Platform and Western China R&D Center; Qianhai Financial Holdings will jointly build the Qianhai International Innovation and Financial Center.

We can’t say for sure yet whether or not Tianfu New Area will become another Beijing Tongzhou area or Shanghai Lujiazui area. But we are convicted that it will be a brand-new city of the future.