New Silk Road, Blue Zhanjiang, Peninsula Dream

Keynote speech at 2014 China Ocean Economy Exposition

By Wang Zhongbing, mayor of Zhanjiang

Dec 3, 2014

  Wang Zhongbing, mayor of Zhanjiang, delivers a speech at the 2014 China Ocean Economy Expo Forum on Dec 3.

Distinguished guests, ladies, gentlemen and friends: Welcome to the beautiful Zhanjiang to attend the 2014 China Ocean Economy Exposition. The exposition has given Zhanjiang an opportunity to show its beauty and charm.

The city was one of the first open cities along the coastline approved by the central government in 1984. The city has developed in a mild manner over the past 30 years, like a pot of unboiled water.

It is falling behind Hainan in tourism development, and can’t compete with Pearl River Delta cities in economic aggregate. It hasn’t taken good advantage of its geographic proximity to the ASEAN countries as the Guangxi province has, and the Zhanjiang port is even outdone by the Beibuwan Port.

In addition, while the high-speed railway has extended to many Chinese cities, Zhanjiang is still waiting for it. And the Zhanjiang people don’t look as confident as they did 30 years ago.

Why do they feel this way? I think it’s because they don’t really know the city. I asked many friends if they have been to Zhanjiang, and most of them said no. Zhanjiang sits in the southernmost part of the Chinese mainland. It’s an open coastal city on the border of China, which makes travelling a bit difficult.

Convenient transportation, tourism resources and a well-developed economy are the three key elements in attracting talents and investment for an open city. Has Zhanjiang changed today? The exposition gives the answer. It’s not about what we say, but about how many people come.

As we see, the expo has attracted many visitors. Let me give you some more examples. There are six flights between Zhanjiang and Shanghai every day, with the attendance rate at 80 percent, and 14 flights between Zhanjiang and Guangzhou with full attendance on a daily basis. Container throughput at Zhanjiang Port has grown 50 percent in 2014 compared with last year, and the city’s port handling capacity is expected to exceed 200 million tons, up 15 percent from last year, topping all ports throughout the nation.

The Zhanjiang Airport has seen a 50-percent growth in passenger throughput and a 30-percent rise in cargo handling capacity this year. A total of 27.58 million people visited Zhanjiang from January to November, up 13 percent. I think there are mainly three reasons for these changes.

First, the blue ocean and sky in Zhanjiang have attracted people here, where they can take a deep breath of the fresh air and feel close to nature and the earth, which is hard to come by in most cities plagued by haze.

Second, the deep-water port in Zhanjiang Bay helps develop local logistics services, which has attracted many State-owned and Fortune 500 companies to settle in the city.

Third, the persistent and emulative spirit of Zhanjiang people and the glorious local history are also appealing to many visitors. We are walking on the 13,000-square-kilometer Leizhou Peninsula, one of the three largest peninsulas in China.

There are eight million diligent and kind Zhanjiang people living on this land. Zhanjiang is an important tropical and subtropical coastal city in China. The marine outfall of the Zhanjiang Port is located in the south of the Zhanjiang Bay, which faces the vast South China Sea.

Two thousand years ago, people on Leizhou Peninsula and royal court envoys sailed around the Beibu Gulf into the Indian Ocean. They opened the ancient Maritime Silk Road, and a peaceful, friendly and cooperative route for exchanges between the East and the West.

Ban Gu was a famous historiographer in the Eastern Han Dynasty and made a complete record of the history. According to his description, the ancient imperial court in the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty set up management institutes in today’s Xuwen county of Zhanjiang and recruited sailors to form a commercial fleet.

They set sail from Xuwen, across Vietnam and Malacca to Burma, India and Sri Lanka, taking silk and gold in exchange for pearls, colored glaze, and exotic stone and items along the way. This is the earliest record of the Maritime Silk Road.

A large group of Han Dynasty tombs were discovered in Xuwen county in the 1990s, and many remains were unearthed, including the Han Dynasty seal and eaves tiles, which has proved that the county was one of the earliest international trade ports in China and the departure point of the ancient Maritime Silk Road.

Zhanjiang was once reduced to French Concession in modern times, and was called the Guangzhou Gulf, which evolved into a free trade port at the beginning of the last century. During the early days of the War of Resistance against Japanese invasion, Zhanjiang was the only channel connecting the Chinese mainland with the outside world.

The Guangzhou Gulf gathered many merchants and was widely known in Southeast Asia. Guild halls named after the Leizhou Peninsula in Singapore and Malaysia have carried a history of more than 100 years, and is still serving as the platform for overseas Chinese to communicate with each other.

When the PRC was just founded, the country suffered a bankrupt economy, and the government started massive construction throughout the nation. Zhanjiang built a modern large port, big agricultural reclamation enterprises, and the Hedi Reservoir, paving the way for the development of Leizhou Peninsula and the modernization of Zhanjiang.

The reform and opening-up policy has ushered in a new era of revitalization in Zhanjiang. This year marks the 30th anniversary of Zhanjiang as one of the first opening-up coastal cities in China. The city has sped up development over the past 30 years, and its marine economy has ranked third in Guangdong province, next only to Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

From the river era to ocean era, from the ancient Maritime Silk Road to the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, and from history to reality, Zhanjiang has embraced the ocean and is increasingly determined to revitalize itself.

Our wish is to integrate into the New Silk Road, build a blue Zhanjiang and realize the peninsula dream, and build the city into a national strategic pivot of the Maritime Silk Road in the 21st Century. We have a clear “blue” path in mind.

On one hand, we will speed up the development of the blue industries and focus on the Zhanjiangwan District, deepening government-industry-university-research cooperation, strengthening steel, petrochemicals, paper making, household appliances, medicine and aquatic industries, and transforming the city into an internationally advanced manufacturing base.

We will accelerate blue travel development, develop tourism products revolving around Maritime Silk Road and coastal leisure, and build a winter vacation in South China. We will expedite fishery development, build big steel fishing boats as well as large fishing fleets, form big fishing fleet teams, and develop the pelagic fishery industry.

On the other hand, we’ll be people-oriented and stick to green and low carbon development.

First, we will give priority to public transportation and pedestrian street development. Zhanjiangwan district is in the downtown area, and has 600,000 motor vehicles, with half cars and half battery-operated motorcycles.

We encourage the use of battery-operated motorcycles because they are pollution free, but we have made rules in terms of speed control of motorcycles. Reasonable allocation of road resources has also been made to give way to motorcycles and bicycles. That is to say, 50 percent of the city’s roads will be given to motor vehicles, and 50 percent will be dedicated to green transportation means.

Second, we follow the law of nature to conduct scientific governance of the river, and dredge canals to realize natural rain storage, permeation and purification.

Third, we build a steel and petrochemical circular economy pilot site on Donghai Island, and the idea of a circular economy is also applied in the development of the city and the rural areas of Zhanjiang.

Zhanjiang enjoys a green environment, shining sunshine and year-long warm climate. Friends from North China might have also been impressed by the beautiful environment and fresh air in Zhanjiang. Here, I’m proud to tell you that Zhanjiang’s PM2.5 reading is below 20 all year round.

Its air quality ranked first in Guangdong in the first three quarters this year, making Zhanjiang the city with the best air quality in Guangdong. We’ve made the first step in the way of sustainable development.

We have definite “blue” goals. We aim to realize synchronous development of new industrialization and urbanization, as well as coordinated urban and rural development. We rely on Zhanjiangwan to speed up the rise of the city and focus on the development of the 23-square-kilometer Haidong New District, aiming to make it the Pudong District of Zhanjiang.

We are also pushing forward the upgrading and transformation of old urban areas and streets to build a new gulf city. We will also need to speed up the construction of the port cluster and highways around the Leizhou Peninsula, as well as the high-speed railway and rail transit systems across the city, and integrate urban and rural development through industrial and population agglomeration by developing transportation.

Our dream is that we will still see the blue sky when the major projects in the iron, steel, and petrochemical industries are completed, and that while we are enjoying the prosperity of the city, the countryside is still the happy homeland that people are yearning for.

We have the following “blue” advantages in realizing a blue Zhanjiang and the peninsula dream.

First, Zhanjiang is the strategic rear area for China to develop the South China Sea and safeguard its rights and interests at the sea. Zhanjiang’s Shili naval port is widely known, and the South China Sea fleet is stationed in Zhanjiang to guard China’s coastal areas and territorial seas, as well as the national strategic interests.

Second, Zhanjiang is the fastest gateway linking the Chinese mainland to Africa, the Middle East, Europe, Southeast Asia, and Oceania, and a major channel for Southwest China to connect with the ocean, the ASEAN and the rest of the world.

Third, Zhanjiang Port is an important hub in China. Recently, the central government approved the port’s expansion and the construction of a bonded logistics center (B type), which offers new development opportunities for the Zhanjiang Port.

Fourth, Zhanjiang is a rising modernized emerging industrial port city. We are striving to develop harbor industries, and have established six conventional industries including household appliances, aquatic products, medicine, food, furniture, and machinery industries.

In addition, we are forging the iron and steel, petrochemical and paper making industries as pillar industries.

Fifth, Zhanjiang is an important city with marine resources and economy. The city’s coastline extends 2,043.5 kilometers, including 1,243 kilometers of mainland coastline, accounting for 6.4 percent of China’s coastline.

Inclusiveness and opening-up is another important advantage of the city. From being the departure port of the ancient Maritime Silk Road, to being one of the first coastal cities in China and a strategic pivot of the new Maritime Silk Road, Zhanjiang has fed its people on the sea, and the Zhangjiang people are as open as the sea.

They are honest, kind and warm to friends and enterprises, and respect talents. History and reality has told us that seclusion spells backwardness, and opening-up leads to prosperity. Zhanjiang is an open city, with an open government and economy.

Centering on economic, trade and tourism cooperation on the Maritime Silk Road of the 21st Century, we are looking forward to deepening economic and trade cooperation and strengthening mutual investment with countries and regions along the road, deepening tourism cooperation, developing new cruise lines on the Maritime Silk Road, deepening connectivity, and building New Silk Road international thoroughfare.

Zhanjiang has created one legend after another in the history of economic and trade exchanges. The Guolian Aquatic, in Zhanjiang, is a famous aquatic products processing and export enterprise.

It has won two trade lawsuits against the US over the past decade, and enjoys zero-tariff in frozen shrimp export to the US. Zhanjiang Agricultural Reclamation is a large-scale state-owned enterprise, which has established a sisal planting demonstration garden in Indonesia, as well as a big rubber-planting base and processing plant.

Companies from the New Silk Road countries and regions have also settled in Zhanjiang. The Thailand-based Chia Tai Group has invested 12 billion yuan in building a modern agricultural comprehensive development project in Zhanjiang, with four sub-projects completed and going into production.

We have seen the hope of modern agricultural development in Zhanjiang, and we are looking forward to more enterprises from the New Silk Road to invest in Zhanjiang. China has a land area of 9.6 million square kilometers and more than three million square kilometers of territorial seas. Zhanjiang is opening up to strategic opportunities from the Maritime Silk Road of the 21st Century.

The beautiful city is now more like a boiling pot of water. The island here is boiling. The 286-square-kilometer Donghai Island has a great number of pile foundations and roaring machineries. There are more than 10,000 construction workers at Zhanjiang’s steel construction site, and the 300,000-ton steel structure, mechanical and electrical equipment installation will be completed within six months, with a high degree of accuracy.

The railway, port, water supply facility, 500,000-volt transformer substation, port road, chemical industrial park, steel supporting park, and community projects are all under construction on Donghai Island.

The island is not only the biggest construction site in China, but also will be built into China’s first steel and petrochemical circular economy pilot zone. The Zhanjiang Port has opened new container liners to Singapore, Japan, the Republic of Korea (ROK) and Vietnam, and a liner to Thailand will be launched soon, making it more closely connected to the ASEAN countries.

Port cluster construction at the Leizhou Peninsula will inject new vitality into the local economy. The Haidong new district is also developing in a new pattern. The Guangzhouwan Avenue will serve as an ideal place for people to enjoy landscape sceneries and leisure activities.

Our hearts are boiling. Opening up, cooperation and win-win development is an irresistible trend in the country’s development. The Zhanjiang people are more confident and determined on the road of revitalization.

We’re following in the footsteps of our ancestors and riding the wave of the times towards success. We’ll see you at the next China Ocean Economy Exposition, and we’re confident that Zhanjiang will become more beautiful then. Thank you.