Advanced opening-up highlights Shenyang’s role as global cooperation hub

Provincial capital strives to achieve goals through boosting international relationships and economic growth

Located at the heart of the economic circle of Northeast Asia, Shenyang, capital of Liaoning province in Northeast China, is well positioned to build itself into a high-level international cooperation hub, local officials said.

According to the guidelines on the construction of a national central city that the Shenyang government released in May 2022, the provincial capital is advancing its opening-up to the world more extensively and more deeply, getting more involved in the Belt and Road Initiative, developing a more advanced open economy and creating a high-level opening-up platform.

Meanwhile, in response to the guidelines, the city is enhancing regional cooperation and strengthening domestic opening-up, giving full play to city clusters in their agglomeration and integration, industrial synergy, and influence.

In the dual-circulation pattern, Shenyang is striving to become a pivot of the domestic market circulation and a key node of dual circulation in the domestic and international markets. Its goal is to build itself into an international open and inclusive cosmopolitan city in Northeast Asia, according to the guidelines.

To this end, the city is beefing up the Shenyang Area of China (Liaoning) Pilot Free Trade Zone. It centered on maintenance and remanufacturing, digital trade, and trade in services, putting emphasis on institutional innovation in the free trade zone, and promoting pilot projects of import for remanufacturing.

Established in 2017, the FTZ Shenyang area makes full use of the combination of institutional innovation and the real economy’s development. It strives to make breakthroughs in key industries and crucial production processes to meet the growth needs of local businesses, and ramps up upgrades to the FTZ, in a bid to take the lead in Northeast China’s opening-up, officials said.

Driven by the FTZ Shenyang area, the city’s foreign trade volume stood at 140.66 billion yuan ($20.3 billion) in 2022, of which exports increased 7.7 percent year-on-year to 52.23 billion yuan.

Shenyang will broaden the fields for opening-up across the board, comprehensively improve its capabilities of attracting investment, smooth international channels and build high-level platforms for opening-up, thus creating a high-quality open economy in such dimensions, the officials added.

Siasun Robot & Automation, a high-tech company headquartered in Shenyang’s Hunnan district, has exported its products to 13 countries and regions, meeting the demand across the board for robotic technologies and high-end intelligent equipment used in key sectors including industry, transportation, energy and people’s well-being.

Neusoft Medical Systems, a world-leading clinical diagnosis and treatment solutions provider from Shenyang, has launched its NeuViz 128 intelligent CT system in the international market, including the regions of South Asia and North Africa.

The move set a new technological record for large intelligent medical machines made in China, leading the homegrown large diagnosis equipment to break through their overseas peers’ monopoly on technology and the market and to move onto the international high-end market.

The China-Germany (Shenyang) Equipment Manufacturing Industrial Park is a front-runner in the city’s opening-up landscape.

To date, the industrial park, which was given the green light by the State Council in December 2015, is home to more than 420 companies. Of them, 127 are foreign-funded businesses and 84 are direct investment projects by Fortune Global 500 companies.

Big names include automaker BMW-Brilliance, and auto component and system suppliers ZF Friedrichshafen and Mubea.

BMW-Brilliance is the cradle of the German automaker’s localized production in China. Its production facility in Shenyang’s Tiexi district, the 25th plant of BMW worldwide, is an exemplar of Sino-German cooperation in advanced manufacturing.

The city has also made headway in economic cooperation with South Korea, Japan and Russia. With a focus on Northeast Asian countries, Shenyang will capitalize on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, which came into effect in January 2022, to help local businesses move up the industrial, supply and value chains, aid enterprises from around the globe to attain sustainable development goals, and achieve a win-win situation, local officials noted.

Government data show that paid-in foreign investment in Shenyang continued momentum in 2022, amounting to $3.92 billion and representing a surge of 375.1 percent year-on-year.

Behind the international trade boom and the influx of foreign investment are the city’s favorable policies, efficient administrative services, a well-established industrial foundation, skilled workforce, strong innovation capacities and a convenient transportation network.

The China Railway Express (Shenyang) Hub for China-Europe freight trains came into official operation on March 4. Covering over 2 square kilometers, the hub can handle more than 1,000 trains a year.

Such international logistics channels have significantly helped businesses slash time and costs, bringing them enormous benefits and playing a pivotal role in promoting connectivity and trade in the Northeast Asia region.

In addition, prominent innovation capacities also add to the charm of the investment destination.

The research program of unmanned submersible Haidou-1 achieved world-class breakthroughs in October 2021, filling the gap in the application of 10,000-meter-deep unmanned submersibles in international oceanographic research. The program was led by the Shenyang Institute of Automation at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Another CAS branch, the Institute of Metal Research, is situated in the city’s Shenhe district. It was among the first CAS institutes established after the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949.

The city’s open-mindedness also helps to expand Shenyang’s influence in international exchanges. It has forged friendly ties with 101 cities in 43 countries ­— of which 23 are international friendship cities and 78 are in cooperation with Shenyang — ranking No 1 in the province.

Of the 23 international friendship cities, Sapporo and Kawasaki are in Japan; Daejeon, Seongnam and Incheon are in South Korea; and Irkutsk, Novosibirsk and Uft are in Russia. Four of them — Sapporo in Japan, Chicago in the United States, Daejeon in South Korea, and Belfast in the United Kingdom — have been awarded as international friendship cities for their exchanges with China.