In August 2019, Yu Chenglin, deputy secretary of the Party Working Committee of the Weiting Subdistrict in the Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP), became one of the fifth batch of officials sent by the SIP to aid the development of the Suzhou Suqian Industrial Park (SSIP). He has acted as deputy director of the Investment Promotion and Economic Development Department in the SSIP.
Born in Yangzhou City of Jiangsu Province, Yu completed the studies in Suzhou and then worked for the SIP for 29 years. At the beginning, he felt curious and also worried about his new job in Suqian.
The SSIP is the first joint industrial park development by a northern and southern city in Jiangsu, also the only park at the provincial level. Yu said the Suqian High-speed Railway Station opened in 2019 after construction started in 2018. This means a lower transportation cost and shorter travel time, which are good news to attract investment.
Drawing Suzhou’s experience of integrating a city’s rise with industrial development, the SSIP has built a series of supporting facilities, such as the neighborhood center and 24-hour food court. In addition, it has also adopted the measures of the SIP to create a good business environment and improve the service to facilitate enterprise’s development, in line with the service concept of “being responsive to requests without making any unnecessary intervention.”
The cooperation between Suzhou and Suqian reflects Jiangsu’s concept of a province-wide integration. Similar programs also include building the Suzhou-Wuxi-Changzhou and the Nanjing-Zhenjiang-Yangzhou, and the Wuxi-Changzhou-Taizhou city clusters. These programs are gradually driving deeper and wider integration across the whole province.
On April 1, Jiangsu introduced an action plan to implement an outline of the integrated regional development of the Yangtze River Delta, released by CPC Central Committee and the State Council in last year. According to the action plan, Jiangsu will accelerate the province-wide integration drive. Cities compete in the development and also join hands to pursue a high-quality development. Cooperation, coordination and integration are gaining momentum in the province and will also contribute to the larger delta region.
He Jianhua, a researcher of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences and director of the Institute of New Development of Yangtze River Delta City Clusters at Nantong University, said the first priority is to emancipate their minds in order to realize integrated development and coordinate development in the north and south of the Yangtze River. The integration is not one-way effort, but in two ways. Whether it is the province-wide or the delta-wide integration, success is not achieved overnight. But the integration programs at the smaller scale and inside the province will stimulate the wider interconnection and alignment with the delta.
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