Zhanjiang’s two sessions concluded on February 5. The government report outlines the general direction of the city’s development, and people need to read between the lines to get the essence. A precise interpretation of the key words will be of much help. 

“Sponge City”: The urban water system is “resilient” enough to have the capacity of storing, leaking and purifying rainwater.

“Footprint City”: A people-oriented city gives priority to public transportation and pedestrians to become more convenient, efficient and energetic.

“Sustainable City”: The city integrates its economic and social development with ecological protection and substance circulation to realize resource regeneration.

“Prior-steel System”: The system is built to conduct six procedures before steel is made, including coking, sintering, blast furnace, puddling, refining and continuous casting. (The Baosteel Group is expected to invest a total of 50 billion yuan in the Baosteel base in Zhanjiang, and the prior-steel system construction is under way.)

“Three Rings and Four Links”: The downtown area, the bay area and the peninsular will all be circled with ring roads; The city will be linked with other major cities with high-speed railway, the counties linked to cities with expressways, and all villages linked with roads.

Southern “maritime valley”: The city will forge an innovation-driven modern maritime industrial cluster based on maritime science and technology and making full use of industry-university-research cooperation.

“Negative List”：The government stipulates several forbidden and regulated sectors and industries, and all the other sectors and industries are open to enterprises and individuals to conduct legal economic activities.