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Hubei presses ahead with drive to bring about faster development

(People's Daily Online) 09:51, April 15, 2021

Central China’s Hubei province, once hit hard by COVID-19, achieved a speedy and comprehensive economic recovery in the first quarter of 2021, and has been striving to make up for the time lost and the damage incurred due to the epidemic to bring about faster development.

Aerial photo taken on Aug. 7, 2020 shows the Yellow Crane Tower in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province. (Xinhua/Xiao Yijiu)

In March 2020, Wuhan, the provincial capital, rolled out 12 policies on lowering or exempting taxes and fees for market entities and helped 739,000 self-employed individuals get through the challenging time.

The city also raised 60 billion yuan (about $9.15 billion) and introduced 21 policies to help enterprises resume production.

Apart from Wuhan, the whole province unveiled a slew of policies to assist enterprises impacted by COVID-19, reducing the cost burden on enterprises, and stabilizing employment.

The province has been working faster to implement a series of key infrastructure projects to ensure that they can benefit people at the earliest possible time.

In 2021, Hubei aims to launch 4,274 new major projects and continue the construction of 4,881 projects, all with an average investment of over 100 million yuan.

Moreover, the province has made unremitting efforts to improve the business environment and create favorable conditions for enterprises to set up branches and ensure long-term sound development.

U.S. industrial conglomerate Honeywell opened its emerging market headquarters and innovation center in Wuhan East Lake High-tech Development Zone, also known as the Optics Valley of China, on May 19, 2020. It is the first project by a Fortune 500 company launched in Hubei since the COVID-19 outbreak.

Hubei also aims to take the lead in promoting the transformation of the economic growth model. “We pursue development driven by science, technology and innovation,” said Ying Yong, secretary of the CPC Hubei Provincial Committee, explaining that the province will make steady efforts to build Hubei into a science and technology powerhouse, with innovation as the core.

Over the next five years, the province will foster clusters of emerging industries such as integrated circuits, next-generation information networks, the latest display technologies, biomedicine, and comprehensive health care services.

In February 2021, the province announced it would build a sci-tech innovation corridor based in the Wuhan East Lake High-tech Development Zone. Home to dozens of universities, 70 academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering, and nearly 60 percent of high-tech companies of the province, the development zone is an ideal location for innovation.

Hubei will build the Optics Valley into a cluster of scientific innovation and emerging industries to contribute to the coordinated development of cities in the province.

Drawing lessons from the epidemic, the province has improved its public health system. It has made efforts to strengthen disease prevention and control, medical treatment, capacity for prevention and control at the community level, first aid and the building of a public health emergency management platform.

In the early stages of the epidemic, Hubei wasted no time in vaccine research and development. On April 12, 2020, the world’s first inactivated vaccine, which was developed by the Wuhan Institute of Biological Products affiliated with Sinopharm, was given approval to enter clinical trials. On Feb. 25, 2021, the inactivated vaccine developed by the institute was granted conditional market approval.

According to Duan Kai, director of the institute, the production of the vaccine is now in full swing. It is able to produce 2 million doses of the vaccine every week and 100 million doses annually.

As of 0:00 April 7, 2021, more than 9.7 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines had been administered across the province. 

(Web editor: Hongyu, Liang Jun)

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