On May 22nd, the main leaders of the Yangtze River Delta region held a meeting in Wuhu City, Anhui Province. In the meantime, important activities such as the first high-level forum on the integration of the Yangtze River Delta will be held. Since the regional integration development of the Yangtze River Delta has risen to the national strategy, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Anhui have continuously expanded their cooperation areas, deepened cooperation content, improved cooperation mechanisms, and solidly promoted the development of higher quality integration in the Yangtze River Delta.

The regional integrative development of the Yangtze River Delta has risen to a national strategy, marking a new historical stage in the Yangtze River Delta region and creating a major opportunity for the new round of development in Zhejiang. The Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee and the Provincial Government have clearly taken the implementation of the National Strategy for the Regional Integrative Development of the Yangtze River Delta as one of the three major tasks that the province should focus on this year, and required the province to be fully engaged in the integrative development of the Yangtze River Delta.

In recent years, especially this year, with higher quality, larger structure, and greater synergy, Zhejiang has been promoting its integration into Shanghai, promoting the integrative development of the Yangtze River Delta, promoting deeper reforms at a higher starting point. At present, Zhejiang is promoting regional integration in the Yangtze River Delta more and more solidly.

Co-construction and sharing

Planning an innovation community

"Integration" and "high quality" are the two key words put forward by the central government for the regional integration development of the Yangtze River Delta. "Now local governments in the Yangtze River Delta will have integration in their mind when formulating policy plans, so will they when building platforms." A leader from the Zhejiang Development and Reform Commission said.

Since last year, with the advancement of high-quality integration in the Yangtze River Delta, the construction of a “community” across administrative regions has been accelerating. In March of this year, Zhangjiang Yangtze River Delta Technology City, the first inter-provincial (city) cooperation park jointly established by the governments of Zhejiang and Shanghai, ushered in a period of centralized signing of the “Digital Economy” projects.

“So far, we have introduced more than 10 projects in robot-related industries,” the head of Pinghu Park in Zhangjiang Yangtze River Delta Technology City told reporters. Many of the core workers of the project were settled in Shanghai. As Pinghu can solve the spatial bottleneck problem of Shanghai's industrial development, and provide high-quality services for enterprises in transportation and business environment, the construction of the park has achieved a win-win result.

At the end of last year, the regional integration of the Yangtze River Delta became a national strategy. On December 30 of that year, the Sino-Singapore Jiashan Modern Industrial Park project was officially signed, which was planned to cover an area of 16.5 square kilometers; in March this year, the park officially released its industrial plans, and all 15 special plans were approved. At present, industrial investment and infrastructure construction are accelerating...

“In the past, cooperative construction of industrial parks was almost blank for Jiashan, and the Sino-Singapore Jiashan Modern Industrial Park, which is currently rapidly advancing, truly reflects the cooperative development,” said an official from the Jiashan County Development and Reform Bureau. In cooperation with the developer of the Zuzhou Industrial Park, they plan to invest 3 billion yuan in infrastructure construction this year, while the other party will increase their efforts in attracting investment. It is reported that the industrial park will use smart sensing as the core technology to attract enterprises and build a high-quality development demonstration zone for the integration of the Yangtze River Delta.

Since last year, multi-type and high-level cooperation carriers have become the new highlights in the integrative development of the Yangtze River Delta, such as the grand G60 Technology Innovation Corridor, and the many new platforms for inter-provincial industrial parks. Through the new model of “co-construction and sharing”, not only can industrial integration be realized, but also the integration of infrastructure, public services, eco-environment and other aspects can be achieved by implementing system planning across administrative regions.

New cooperation carriers represented by the inter-provincial industrial parks are an effective platform to accelerate the integrative development. At present, the "Outline for the Regional Integration Plan of the Yangtze River Delta" has been reviewed, and then the "action plans" will be introduced successively. Experts said that the provinces and cities in the Yangtze River Delta should really plan together to fundamentally solve the problem of top-level design, and truly develop towards the direction of an innovation community.

Co-existence for common prosperity

Upgrade industry chain cooperation

From Jiaxing and Huzhou, which are adjacent to Shanghai and Suzhou, to Quzhou and Lishui, which are located in southern Zhejiang, the industrial cooperation brought about by the integration of the Yangtze River Delta can be seen everywhere. We are marching towards the goal of “basically forming an innovation-driving regional industrial system and collaborative innovation system,” which is set in the "Three-Year Action Plan for the Integration of the Yangtze River Delta (2018-2020)".

In Xuancheng, Anhui province, Xiaoshan enterprises have found a new production base for the down industry, which has solved the bottleneck of development such as scarcity of land and increased talent costs. In Jingning, a mountainous city, since the establishment of friendly relations and cooperation with Jing’an District of Shanghai in March this year, Shanghai enterprises came here one after another, and a number of enterprises in the fields of e-commerce and biotechnology will bring new impetus...

What is even more gratifying is that since last year, industrial cooperation has not only increased in quantity, but also prompted the governments to think about how to continue to upgrade at the level and modes of cooperation.

After the meeting of the main leaders in the Yangtze River Delta region on June 1 last year, some experts pointed out that it is necessary to speed up the compilation of the Yangtze River Delta industry and innovative resource identification maps, and identify their respective industry characteristics and foundations, so as to prevent repeated investment and waste of resources, and promote industrial linkage and resource sharing.

For example, by identifying industrial clusters, we can see at a glance which industrial clusters are gathered in each place, and at what stage. In this way, the local industries can focus on their own fields, and truly form industrial clusters with distinctive advantages.

At the construction site of the core project “Semiconductor Shaoxing” in Shaoxing IC Town, the excavators are rumbling and the cranes moving back and forth. "We will achieve mass production of major products by March next year," said the person in charge of the project. Integrated circuit is the key industry cultivated by the three provinces and one city. How to avoid excessive competition which may lead to a waste of resources? "We are actively carrying out research on integrated circuit technology innovation in the Yangtze River Delta. The industry giant from Shanghai, SMIC, has chosen to set its production bases in Ningbo and Shaoxing. It is the result of integrative planning, and their competitiveness in integrated circuits in the entire Yangtze River Delta region will also be further enhanced," said an official from the Zhejiang Development and Reform Commission.

"The Yangtze River Delta industry chain needs to complement each other. For example, the integrated circuit industry needs a large number of supporting facilities, and the large aircraft industry chain also needs higher quality industrial support," said an official from the Shanghai Development and Reform Commission. A new round of industrial structure in the Yangtze River Delta has already formed, where there is a huge market and industrial hinterland, and there is much room for improvement in the cooperation of industrial chains.

On May 16 this year, the Yangtze River Delta Automobile Industry Innovation Alliance was formally established, jointly initiated by Pinghu, Jiading, Wenzhou, Kunshan and Taicang. It will jointly create a number of scientific and technological enterprise incubators and other achievements transformation bases to cultivate and improve the environment of the Yangtze River Delta region for the automotive industry's mutual integration, collaborative innovation and common development, so as to provide assistance for building the core area of a world-class automobile industry center.

With the continuous improvement of industrial synergy, industrial alliances and funds that promote the deep integration of the industrial chain have been on the stage since last year. Whether it is the “Yangtze River Fashion Industry Alliance” established by more than 40 textile and garment associations and enterprises, or the “Yangtze River Delta Health Industry Alliance” jointly established by Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui, these “alliances” will line up the enterprise headquarters, R&D bases, production bases and other industrial chains in a row for coordination.

It is foreseeable that in the future, more and more “alliances” and regional industrial clusters will emerge in the Yangtze River Delta region, and promote the formation of greater synergy in the process of higher quality integrative development in the Yangtze River Delta.

Co-planning for common development

Exploring new mechanisms for cooperation

In February this year, under the joint witness of the main leaders of Shanghai and Zhejiang, Zhejiang Port Group and Shanghai Port Group signed an agreement to jointly develop the north side of Xiaoyangshan Island by means of equity cooperation.

The port enterprises of the two places will cooperate in business development through capital cooperation, and introduce market mechanisms to make the sharing of risks and interests more reasonable. This will lay the market foundation for the further development of Yangshan Port and integrative development of ports in a larger area.

The development of the north side of Xiaoyangshan embodies the expectation of Zhejiang and Shanghai in exploring a new mechanism for cross-regional cooperation. Huang Xianhai, a professor at the School of Economics of Zhejiang University, said in an interview that, to have higher quality integration in the Yangtze River Delta, it should no longer be confined to the cooperation of physical project construction. In the face of some deep-seated problems, it is necessary to rely on reform to solve problems, and there must be breakthroughs in institutional mechanisms.

In the past year, such a breakthrough has been achieved in multiple aspects. For example, the construction of G60 Science and Technology Corridor involves nine cities, and for business license applications, enterprises may apply locally and approved remotely in other places and then obtain certificates in the local place.

In this regard, entrepreneurs still have greater expectations. One phenomenon frequently mentioned is that the Yangtze River Delta is creating the optimal business environment with few approval procedures, high efficiency, excellent investment environment and strong sense of acquisition: Zhejiang has its “maximum one visit service procedure”, Shanghai has its “everything done through one web”, Jiangsu has its “approval without meeting”, and Anhui has its “one web one office service”...

However, it should also be noted that because the data between the regions cannot be interconnected, the handling of enterprise-related matters cannot be “done at one visit”, which to a certain extent hinders the cross-provincial flow and coordination of resources. To connect the data between different regions, it is inseparable from the higher level of integration between the regions at the institutional level.

In an interview with the reporter, Jing Xiandong, Chairman and CEO of Ant Finance Service, suggested that, as the Yangtze River Delta has undertaken a large number of national-level reform pilot tasks, such as the construction of a free trade pilot zone, an independent innovation demonstration zone, and a cross-border e-commerce comprehensive test zone, the innovative institutional achievements formed in the course of practice should be copied and promoted within the Yangtze River Delta region. For example, the above-mentioned problems can be solved by promoting “everything done through one web” on the base of policy and standard coordination, and upgraded enterprise-related services with digital technology.

The reporter noted that Shanghai and Zhejiang are planning to jointly promote a big data center for the Yangtze River Delta integration, aiming at the unification of data format, caliber, catalogue and interface, so as to promote data collection and integration, accelerate the construction of basic databases, and promote database sharing.

What is expected is that the Yangtze River Delta Regional Integration Demonstration Zone is now under actively planning and construction. The demonstration zone will focus on cracking the bottleneck of the Yangtze River Delta integration – especially in the cross-provincial institutional innovation. It aims to take the lead in achieving a number of results and first-hand experience, and gradually replicate and promote throughout the Yangtze River Delta region.