Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-city.
Open for development, a new chapter of cooperation spectrum.
近日，中新双边合作机制会议在津召开，中国、新加坡两国政府间重大合作项目——中新天津生态城，再次走到聚光灯下。双方决定，共同支持生态城建设国家绿色发展示范区升级版，打造两国“全方位高质量的前瞻性伙伴关系”示范性项目。
三分之一的盐碱荒地、三分之一的废弃盐田、三分之一的污染水面，这是昔日生态城建设的起步基底。惟其艰难，最能积累生态再造经验、张扬绿色发展信心。经过15载水土治理改良、城市规划建设，中新天津生态城已成渤海之滨的生态高地、花园城市、人居样板。
15载的合作开发，见证了天津这座城市在对外开放中的务实作风、实干成效。
习近平总书记指出，开放是国家繁荣发展的必由之路。作为中国北方最大的沿海城市，天津坚持以习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想为指导，紧紧抓住新时代历史机遇，用好自身开放平台、区位、港口、产业、科教等综合优势，脚踏实地深耕各个开放合作领域，在实施推动京津冀协同发展走深走实、滨海新区高质量发展支撑引领、港产城融合发展等“十项行动”中大力拓展对外合作成果，以高水平对外开放助推高质量发展。
精耕“试验田”
依托对外开放，天津东部沿海的盐碱滩涂上，不断创造着传奇。
In the 1980s, Tianjin Economic and Technological Development Zone, one of the first national development zones, was established here, becoming a leader in attracting foreign investment and opening up.
In order to implement the cooperation agreement between China and Singapore, in September 2008, the foundation stone of Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-city was laid, which once again opened the legendary road of building an eco-city on the saline-alkali beach. The Chinese investment company and the Sino-Singapore joint venture company cooperated in division of labor, promoted infrastructure construction and commercial development in an orderly manner, and successfully explored the feasible path of "realizing ecological city under harsh initial conditions".
After thorough treatment, the sewage bank of Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-city, which has accumulated industrial wastewater for more than 40 years, has become a scenic lake, and the proportion of excellent water quality in coastal waters has reached 100%. Create a 32-kilometer urban green corridor and 40 theme city parks with their own characteristics, and the green coverage rate of the built-up area exceeds 50%; Compile and implement the "double carbon" action plan, and explore the "low carbon-ultra-low-near zero-net zero" carbon reduction path in communities, factories and industrial parks; Draw lessons from Singapore’s "neighborhood unit" model to carry out the national "complete community" pilot construction, scientifically arrange high-quality living facilities such as education, medical care and commerce, and create a 500-meter high-quality living circle; Take the lead in building a smart city, build an "urban brain" covering 19 fields such as construction, environment and emergency response, and launch 42 application scenarios such as smart communities and smart transportation, which were rated as typical areas of smart cities by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology; Prospering the city with production, forming leading industrial clusters such as intelligent scientific and technological services, cultural and healthy tourism, green building and development …
Proofing for green transformation and exploring the road for "future cities" Nowadays, Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-city has changed from a "saline-alkali experimental field" to a green and smart city, and its ecological management technology and urban development concept have had a wide impact and have been promoted and implemented in many regions.
Intensive cultivation and opening up the "experimental field" is a major mission entrusted by the state and an opportunity for local development.
Tianjin Pilot Free Trade Zone is the first pilot free trade zone in northern China. In the past eight years, we have deepened systematic and integrated institutional innovation, promoted institutional opening, implemented a total of 581 institutional innovation measures, replicated and promoted 38 pilot experiences and practical cases to the whole country, and replicated and promoted 5 batches of reform pilot experiences with 118 items and 7 innovative practical cases. According to the research report released by the Comprehensive Research Institute of Free Trade Zone of Sun Yat-sen University this year, the institutional innovation index of Tianjin Pilot Free Trade Zone ranks third at the provincial level and ranks among the top three for four consecutive years.
A high level of opening to the outside world has brought about rapid growth. By the end of 2022, there were 82,000 market entities in Tianjin Pilot Free Trade Zone, three times more than before the establishment of the Pilot Free Trade Zone, and nearly 4,000 foreign-invested enterprises were introduced, with a registered capital of nearly one trillion yuan, becoming a "growth pole" for industrial agglomeration and a "new highland" for opening up.
National New District, Pilot Free Trade Zone, High-tech Zone, Comprehensive Bonded Zone, Economic and Technological Development Zone … Tianjin has a complete platform for opening to the outside world, with overlapping policy advantages and huge space potential.
At present, the city is deeply implementing the "Ten Actions" to promote high-quality development, enhancing the leading role of opening "experimental fields", making efforts to promote the coordinated development of regional open platforms and amplifying the policy synergy. The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Pilot Free Trade Zone has established a joint conference system, launched 153 items of "colleagues with the same standard" in government services, and implemented regional cooperation. In May this year, the construction of Tianjin Pilot Free Trade Zone Linkage Innovation Demonstration Base (TEDA Comprehensive Bonded Zone) was launched, and the advantages of the free trade zone and the comprehensive insurance zone were complementary and coordinated, further enhancing the effectiveness of the institutional opening of the "experimental field".
Broaden the "open road"
At the bottom of Bohai Bay, the "Three Norths" will be rushed and the road will lead to the world.
To promote the opening up, Tianjin has unique and superior location, port and traffic conditions, and Tianjin Port is a "hard core" advantage.
As the maritime gateway of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and the "Three North" areas and the land-sea intersection of "the belt and road initiative", this century-old port has maintained shipping and trade exchanges with more than 500 ports in more than 180 countries and regions in the world, and has undertaken the mission of serving the coordinated development of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and jointly building the "the belt and road initiative".
In recent years, Tianjin Port has accelerated the construction of a world-class smart green port, continuously improved its port service capacity and radiation level, and maintained a rapid growth momentum in container throughput, ranking among the top ten ports in the world.
On November 22nd, a cargo ship carrying 3,699 new energy vehicles departed from the berth of the ro-ro terminal in Tianjin Port and sailed for Zeebrugge Port in Belgium, marking the opening of another new ro-ro route. So far, the foreign trade ro-ro route of Tianjin Port has reached many countries and regions such as Europe, America, Australia, New Zealand, Middle East, Africa, Japan and South Korea.
Expanding overseas routes and expanding domestic sources of goods, Tianjin Port has continuously extended its function of serving foreign trade. Since the beginning of this year, container routes such as mediterranean shipping company Middle East Line, Wanhai Shipping South America Line and CMA Southeast Asia Line have been newly opened, and there are 66 "the belt and road initiative" related routes among container routes. More than 120 marketing outlets have been set up in China, and more than 40 sea-rail combined transport channels have been opened, serving 13 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities in China, and connecting four ports of Erenhot, Alashankou, Horgos and Manzhouli, and constantly exploring new customers and service areas.
This year, Tianjin made great efforts to implement the action of integrating port production with city development, increased the impetus to the port economy, vigorously developed shipping services, shipping finance, port-suitable industries, etc., and further enhanced the port factor allocation capacity and comprehensive benefits. Shipbuilding, petrochemical, marine equipment, cold chain logistics, frozen product processing and other industries in Binhai New Area have developed rapidly, and financial leasing, commercial factoring and online freight transportation in Dongjiang have become a trend in groups. Xiaobailou business circle in the central city has built an international shipping service gathering area, with more than 900 shipping companies in Hexi District alone.
Foreign capital and foreign trade connect domestic and foreign resources and markets, which is an important support to promote high-quality development and an important indicator to measure the level of opening up. Tianjin ranks among the top countries in attracting foreign investment, especially in the industrial field. In the first three quarters of this year, foreign businessmen and enterprises from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan accounted for 47.5% of the added value of industrial enterprises above designated size, nearly half.
In the face of unfavorable factors such as slowing global economic growth and sluggish cross-border investment, Tianjin has actively stabilized the basic disk of foreign investment and made joint efforts in stock and increment. Continuously optimize the business environment, increase capital and expand production for foreign companies in the region, and organize economic and trade delegations to Singapore, Japan, South Korea and Europe for investment promotion many times … In the first half of the year, there were 276 foreign-invested enterprises in the city, up 7.8% year-on-year, and the actually used foreign capital was US$ 3.93 billion, up 6% year-on-year.
Since the beginning of the year, foreign-funded enterprises have increased their investment in Tianjin. The second assembly line project of Airbus Tianjin A320 series aircraft started, the technical transformation project of new models invested by FAW-Volkswagen Tianjin Branch started, Novo Nordisk (China) Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. invested 1.18 billion yuan to build a new workshop, the intelligent assembly center project of SEW- Transmission Equipment (Tianjin) Co., Ltd. started, and German hantman Group invested 140 million yuan to build a new energy automobile parts production line project … The chassis and stamina of foreign-funded economy continued to consolidate.
Build a "cooperation bridge"
Since the beginning of this year, Tianjin offline exhibitions and international exchanges have been heating up.
In May, the 7th World Intelligence Conference arrived as scheduled. More than 1,000 Chinese and foreign dignitaries, experts and scholars, and corporate café s from 51 countries and regions around the world gathered in Jinmen, and 492 units took part in the exhibition with more than 1,000 new technologies and products. The city signed 98 key projects with all parties, with a total agreement amount of about 81.5 billion yuan.
In June, the annual meeting of the new champions of the World Economic Forum (Summer Davos Forum) was held in Tianjin for the seventh time. More than 1,500 leading figures from global political circles, business circles, social organizations, international organizations and academia attended the meeting to jointly explore ways to cope with the current global economic challenges.
In addition, the China International Mining Conference attracted more than 260 domestic and foreign industry enterprises to participate; At Tianjin International Shipping Industry Expo, hundreds of leading enterprises in the shipping field and world-renowned port leaders from 22 countries and regions gathered together to seek business opportunities for cooperation …
Take the meeting as a bridge to connect China and foreign countries. People flow, logistics, information flow and capital flow from all over the world meet in Tianjin. While serving the national strategy, it also won valuable opportunities for the host Tianjin to expand international docking cooperation and promote high-quality development.
Sister-city communication is a bridge for Tianjin to carry out international exchanges and cooperation in a normal way.
In June this year, the 2023 China Tianjin International Forum on Urban Governance and the Seventh East Asia Gateway City Policy Forum with the theme of "Sister City Cooperation and Urban Internationalization" were successfully held, which further strengthened the exchanges and cooperation between our city and international sister cities.
Tianjin is the earliest city in China to carry out international friendship city exchanges. In 1973, Tianjin and Kobe were established as the first pair of sister cities between China and China, which also initiated’s international friendship city exchanges. This year coincides with the 50th anniversary of the marriage, and the two sides have jointly held a series of celebrations, with many official visits and people-to-people exchanges heating up. Forty-nine teenagers from five high schools in Kobe walked into Tianjin to experience the cultural charm of China and sow the seeds of peace and friendship.
Not far from mountains and seas, the flowers of friendship bloom everywhere. This year, Sumia bazar, Mayor of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia; Nicholas Rees, Deputy Mayor of Melbourne, Australia; Liu Zhengfu, Mayor of Incheon, South Korea; Tori Fanau, Mayor of Wellington, New Zealand, and other sister city representatives visited Tianjin successively. Tianjin has established friendly relations with 99 local governments in 53 countries on five continents, and has increasingly close counterpart cooperation with sister cities in various fields and at all levels, such as economy and trade, ports, education, medical care, culture and sports.
Serving the country’s overall diplomacy, Tianjin is also taking the initiative to go out and create a "national business card" for international exchanges and cooperation.
China-Egypt TEDA Suez Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone is the flagship project of China and Egypt to jointly build the "the belt and road initiative". With the common concern of the two heads of state, the cooperation zone has become an industrial park with the best comprehensive environment, the highest investment density, the highest unit output and the most concentrated Chinese-funded enterprises in Egypt. Egyptian President Seyce evaluated it as "the most successful project in the Suez Canal Corridor Economic Belt at present".
Luban Workshop is an international brand of vocational education that was originally created in Tianjin and took the lead in promoting its implementation. It is widely welcomed by the host country because of its "small but beautiful, quick effect and benefiting people’s livelihood". Djibouti President Guelleh praised: "Luban Workshop is the best gift from China to Djibouti."
In May this year, during the China-Central Asia Summit, Tianjin signed a cooperation agreement with East Kazakhstan of the Republic of Kazakhstan to launch the Luban Workshop Project in Kazakhstan. Less than seven months later, on December 9, the Luban Workshop in Kazakhstan was put into trial operation. The major of transportation equipment and technology is set up in the first phase, and there are four training areas, including vehicle maintenance, fuel vehicle system, new energy vehicle and intelligent networked vehicle. "Luban Workshop will provide new impetus for the development of Kazakhstan’s automobile industry, which is dominated by electric vehicles and hybrid vehicles and strengthens the application of artificial intelligence." Sayasat Nurbek, Minister of Science and Higher Education, said.
Since 2016, Tianjin has made full use of its advantages in vocational education, and has built 23 Luban workshops in 22 countries in Asia, Africa and Europe, creating a vocational education export system covering from secondary vocational schools to higher vocational schools to undergraduate courses, and from technical skills training to academic education, effectively serving and promoting the co-construction of "the belt and road initiative".
"High-quality development, high-level reform and opening up, high-efficiency governance and high-quality life" is the goal and vision of Tianjin’s comprehensive construction of a socialist modern metropolis.
Tianjin in the world is a thoroughfare for cooperation. Taking advantage of the east wind of comprehensively deepening reform and promoting high-level opening up in the new era, Tianjin has stood at the forefront of opening up, planted "experimental fields", firmly determined "open roads" and widely built "cooperation bridges", integrated into the overall situation of the country’s opening up in an all-round way, served to build a new development pattern, promoted high-quality development, and wrote a new chapter in building a socialist modern metropolis in an all-round way with practical achievements.
