Exports blossom at free trade port despite sluggish climate

Open and innovative environment boosts investment and trade, benefits people

Editor's Note: This month marks the third anniversary of the launch of China's ambitious national strategy to integrate and synergistically develop the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region in the north into a world-class city cluster. Initiated by President Xi Jinping, the plan envisages the region as the next economic growth engine, and is expected to transform the whole Bohai Bay area into a zone of prosperity in coming decades. The long-term project will likely turbocharge growth by enhancing effectiveness of cities in the region. It will also meld national capital Beijing and neighboring Tianjin and Hebei province into an agglomeration of infrastructure-strong urban centers, promising unprecedented economies of scale, according to the National Development and Reform Commission. To record and review the developing story, China Daily dispatched a team of reporters to the region. Their on-site interviews and in-depth reportage, which inform this special double-page spread, lift the curtain on the unfolding economic spectacle: industries in the region are getting upgraded and transformed; cities are becoming inter-connected and inter-dependent; the Tianjin Pilot Free Trade Zone is attracting quality foreign investment and facilitating local Chinese enterprises' overseas expansion; high-end research expertise is getting connected with local manufacturing abilities; and people's lives are improving all the time, thanks to the new economic activity related to the 2022 Winter Olympics, which will be held in the region.

With the inflow of quality overseas capital and the registration of export-oriented Chinese enterprises, the Tianjin Dongjiang Free Trade Port Zone saw an export surge of 30 percent last year, in an atmosphere of sluggish trade and export globally.