Yangtze River Delta races ahead as integration model

To complete his Chinese bucket list, Dominican student Danzel Djimon Dangleben wants to travel from Shanghai to see major attractions in three nearby provinces.

The 26-year-old, who is studying Chinese at Tongji University in Shanghai, hopes to see firsthand "the sea of clouds" on the peaks of Huangshan Mountain in Anhui province, discover the beauty of Qiandao Lake in Zhejiang province, and take a close look at a two-stringed bowed erhu in Wuxi, Jiangsu province. He was excited to learn he can reach all three destinations by taking the "super loop" high-speed rail service.

"There is no high-speed railway in my home country, so it is an extremely novel and special experience for me to travel by the high-speed trains, taking me from one city to another within a few hours or even dozens of minutes," he said.

Dangleben can speak Chinese quite fluently after studying for nine months, and plans to visit a variety of scenic spots near Shanghai during the summer vacation. The high-speed railway loop is the first of its kind in the region and links key cities as well as scenic spots.

With 21 stations in major cities across the Yangtze River Delta region, the railway loop stretches for more than 1,200 kilometers and is regarded as a major achievement in the area's integration.

By linking Shanghai and the provincial capitals of Nanjing in Jiangsu, Hefei in Anhui province and Hangzhou in Zhejiang, the super loop is expected to facilitate exchanges across the region and promote economic integration in the Yangtze River Delta.

In its first-month of operation, the super loop recorded about 110,000 passenger trips, with its average occupancy rate reaching 90 percent, news portal ThePaper.cn reported, citing the China Railway Shanghai Group.

Accelerated pace

The integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta region is a national strategy now in its sixth year. The ambitious plan aims to build the region into a world-class cluster of cities, said officials and scholars.

By the end of 2023, the region had put 7,100 kilometers of high-speed railway network into operation, an increase of 71 percent compared with 4,150 km in 2018, according to Zhang Zhongwei, deputy director of the Shanghai Municipal Development and Reform Commission.

Gu Jun, deputy secretary-general of the Shanghai municipal government, said during a news conference on July 25 that the significance of the region's integrated development had become greater after the issue was raised at the third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, which concluded on July 18.

"The latest three-year action plan indicates the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta region is entering a new phase of deeper development," Gu said.

"Comprising nine major aspects and 165 key tasks, the plan for the years between 2024 and 2026 has charted a clear road map and outlined tasks to be accomplished in the coming three years," said Gu, who is also director of the Shanghai Municipal Development and Reform Commission.

The regional leadership will strive to realize the targets at an accelerated pace, Gu added.

Zhang said implementation of the three-year action plan will combine the solo efforts of each province or city "into a symphony of the region as a whole".

According to Zhang, the previous two three-year action plans had achieved 90 percent of their key tasks, gathered useful experience, and laid a solid foundation for the implementation of the new action plan.

"Integration and high-quality are the key words in implementing the action plan, and provincial entities will combine their three-year targets with annual tasks, come up with specific measures, and encourage local innovation," said Ling Ming, deputy director of the Jiangsu Provincial Development and Reform Commission.

Chen Haitao, deputy director of the Zhejiang Provincial Development and Reform Commission, said 10 projects for 2024, covering areas such as medical services, elderly care, culture, tourism, government services and food safety, were announced at a high-level forum on the Yangtze River Delta's integrated development held in Wenzhou, Zhejiang, in June.

The projects include adding 660 km of rail and more than 70,000 new public charging piles in the region. More than 200 virtual government service points will also be launched in 41 major cities across the region.

Over 300 elderly care venues for seniors will be developed across the region. An all-in-one card will be made available, enabling the card-holder to visit 3,000 cultural and tourism venues including libraries, museums and scenic spots, as well as fitness complexes.

Measures will also be taken to continue ensuring the safety and quality of food products such as rice, flour, oil, meat, eggs and milk.

The list also covers medical insurance and construction in the countryside. In addition, it grants eligible foreigners a visa-free period of 144 hours, or six days, as long as they are transiting through cities across the Yangtze River Delta region, added Chen.

Chen Jining, Party secretary of Shanghai, said: "Focused on the thoughts and expectations of the people, efforts will be made to make cross-provincial government services more convenient, strengthen collaboration on education, medical care, and elderly care across the region, deepen ecological environmental protection through regional collaboration, and promote the integrated development of culture, sports, business and tourism in the region."

"We will work together with Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui to accelerate construction in the Yangtze River Delta of rail, amplify and elevate the effects of the metropolitan cluster, and deepen public service convenience, so as to continuously enhance people's livelihood and happiness."

Shared future

As a key economic engine of the country, the Yangtze River Delta region contributes about a quarter of the country's total economic output, and accounts for more than one-third of the nation's imports and exports, according to public information.

"Sharing a relatively similar culture, cities within the Yangtze River Delta region have long maintained very close communications and exchanges, and their similarity is also extended to entrepreneurship," said Zuo Xuejin, a researcher from the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.

"Their strong connection and interaction make integration of the region much easier than in other regions," Zuo said.

According to Zuo, since its integrated development was elevated to a national strategy in 2018, the region has achieved significant progress, improving people's quality of life and benefiting business.

The Yangtze River Delta region has one of the nation's most developed high-speed railway networks. As of May 2024, a total of 26 high-speed railway routes were operating across the region, covering all prefecture-level cities with the exception of Zhoushan, an island city in Zhejiang. In total, the region operates more than 14,500 km of rail lines, including over 7,200 km of high-speed rail.

The region plans to extend its rail network to about 17,000 km by 2025, with some 8,000 km of high-speed rail.

The rapid rail network has accelerated economic development and personnel exchanges, Xu Ruihua, a professor with the College of Transportation Engineering at Tongji University was quoted as saying by China Business News.

"Once the regional railway network is formed and gets integrated into the national railway network, the exchanges between the Yangtze River Delta region and areas across the nation will be further enhanced," said Xu.

The rail networks have also reduced the costs of trade and communications across the region, aiding the free and efficient flow of people, goods, capital and information, said Niu Fengrui, a researcher specializing in regional economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

In addition to the rail network, a world-class airport cluster with global importance is taking shape in the East China city cluster. Accounting for merely one-thirtieth of the country's airspace, the area operates one-fifth of China's passenger volume and handles one-third of the nation's air cargo throughput at its 24 airports, according to China News Service.

From January to May, the region transported 115 million air travelers as well as 2.41 million metric tons of cargo, with 862,000 aircraft landings and takeoffs, according to data from the Civil Aviation Administration of China's East China Regional Administration.

Supported by reliable air transportation and improved infrastructure, the Yangtze River Delta region has seen its aviation capacity and services constantly enhanced.

However, the integration of the region is more than just transportation, experts said. The medical expenses settlement service, which connects 24,500 medical institutions in 41 major cities across the region, has assisted more than 33 million medical visits by patients and saved nearly 5.6 billion yuan ($773 million) in advance payments, according to Xinhua News Agency.

Modernization model

Xin Changxing, Party secretary of Jiangsu province, said thanks to the smooth flow of people and goods, collaborative manufacturing has become common in the region.

"The cooperation of enterprises along the industrial chain helps control costs and enhances efficiency," said Xin.

Liu Qingfeng, chairman of iFlytek, a leading AI company, said, "In the past four years, we have seen how enterprises along industrial chains have collaborated and promoted technological products in the region at a greater speed."

The Yangtze River Delta Entrepreneurs Union, founded four years ago, has facilitated the growth of technological innovations and helped match these innovations with market demand, Liu said. It has become a great contributor to the region's industrial upgrade, innovation and development, he added.

With a commitment to promoting industrial chain cooperation across the region, the union has promoted the establishment, consolidation and strengthening of 19 industrial chain alliances. It has boosted scientific and technological innovation and industrial innovation in the region, and built a Yangtze River Delta industrial chain community with global competitiveness and influence, said a report on the region's development of such alliances.

"The essence of the Yangtze River Delta region's integration is collaboration in systems. This is the most difficult and important part in the integrated development of the region. In fact, all the achievements we have made are the results of system collaboration," said Zhang Zhaoan, a counselor at the Shanghai Municipal People's Government.

According to Zhang, who is also former vice-president of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, with the resolution of the third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on further deepening reform comprehensively to advance Chinese modernization, the outlook for the Yangtze River Delta region's integrated development looks promising.

"The success of the region's city cluster development will become important support for China's economic growth, in the meantime, the experience of innovations in reform and opening-up will also serve as a role model for other Chinese city clusters to follow," Zhang said.

Scholars said regardless of the great achievements made in the region's integrated development, there are still many challenges ahead.

"We have reached many collaborative agreements, but few are obligatory. Binding agreements with a focus on integrated development will better facilitate the region's integration," said Zuo from the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.

Liu Zhibiao, head of the Yangtze Industrial Economic Institute with Nanjing University, said the experience of world-class city clusters demonstrated the importance of technological innovation.

"Based on first-rate industrial innovative capacity, cities across the region will form complementary industries in accordance with the market-oriented economy," he said.

"Strong technological innovation abilities will help establish world-class multinational corporations and brands with global competitiveness and attract the world's best talents. This is my vision of the future Yangtze River Delta region," he said.

wang_ying@chinadaily.com.cn