JIANGSU'S ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT SPARKLES ON TOUR

Overseas reporters impressed by key projects in one of China's wealthiest regions

East China's Jiangsu province is one of the most developed regions in China, with its GDP ranking second in the Chinese mainland last year. The story of Jiangsu impressed foreign journalists during a recent media tour.

Jiangsu has an area of 107,200 square kilometers and a population of 80.5 million. It contributes 10.3 percent of China's GDP with only 5.8 percent of the population and 1.1 percent of the land.

The province has put forward ambitious goals in recent years to grow the economy, create a beautiful environment and a highly civilized society with excellent social welfare. Jiangsu set strict requirements in order to balance cultural preservation, ecological protection and improving people's livelihoods while at the same time developing the economy.

In late November, 15 foreign journalists from 12 countries visited Nanjing, Yangzhou and Nantong in the "Hi Jiangsu" media tour organized by the Jiangsu government and China Daily. The aim of the tour was to better expose audiences worldwide to the Chinese experience of high-quality development via real-life case studies related to industrial development, culture, social governance, ecology and rural revitalization in Jiangsu.

Earlier this month, railway tracks began to be laid on the Shanghai-Nantong Yangtze River Bridge. The bridge, which is expected to open in the second half of 2020, will facilitate rail and road transport between the cities of Nantong and Suzhou, as well as promote economic integration in the Yangtze River Delta region, a key city cluster in China.

Stretching for more than 11 km, the bridge is one of the world's largest cable-stayed bridges. It features a six-lane expressway on its upper deck and four railway tracks on its lower deck. It will only take one hour to travel between Shanghai and Nantong, compared with about five hours currently by car, according to a staff member of the project.

The bridge has 432 stay cables, the longest of which is 577 meters long. Each cable consists of about 400 steel wires. One of its single wires, no wider than the width of a human thumb, is capable of holding the weight of an adult elephant, which means the bridge has a strong load capacity, he said, adding the cables feature Chinese intellectual property protection.

In 1957, the first bridge across the Yangtze River opened in Wuhan, Hubei province, whose design and construction required the help of foreign experts. Today, the Shanghai-Nantong Yangtze River Bridge shows how Chinese strength in infrastructural manufacturing has grown.

The media group received special permission to walk on the bridge while it is still under construction.

"The bridge is very high, very long, covering a large area of the Yangtze River. That was very impressive," said Dominic Galeon, a writer from the Manila Bulletin in the Philippines. He added it was a pleasure to visit such an advanced project in China.

Sun Munkh-orgil, a reporter from Montsame News Agency from Mongolia, said he believes the bridge will bring huge economic returns to the surrounding areas.

In the city of Yangzhou in Jiangsu, the media group visited the Jiangdu Water Conservancy Project, one of the largest power irrigation and drainage projects in China. It's also the starting point of the eastern line of the country's South-to-North Water Diversion Project, which aims to ease challenges around water shortages in northern areas by transferring water from the south.

Zhu Chenhui, who introduced the project to the group, said over the last five decades, it has transferred 120 billion cubic meters of water to the north.

Jakhongir Azimov, from Dunyo Information Agency in Uzbekistan, told local media that he was impressed by the sheer scale of China and its projects, especially the importance of the water project.

The group also visited ZTT Group, the largest manufacturing company in Nantong, which specializes in information communication, smart grids, precision industrial equipment and new energy. Yangli Group, a machine tool manufacturing company in Yangzhou, was also visited. It serves companies in fields such as automobiles and home appliances.

On the Nantong leg of the tour, the media representatives visited China-Japan shipbuilding joint venture NACKS, which built China's first container ship using the country's wholly-owned intellectual property. The vessel, completed in 2018, has a capacity of 20,000 twenty-foot equivalent units.

Omura Kenichi, a writer at the Mainichi newspaper, said he was happy to learn that Japan and Nantong have built such close ties.