Footprint City: Give priority to public transportation and green transportation

Tom Clifford: I have experienced personally the beautiful environment of Zhanjiang in the last two days, and the fresh air impressed me particularly. So what measures have the Zhanjiang government taken to protect the environment?

Wang: “Zhanjiang blue” is the best gift that nature endows people here. For a long time, Zhanjiang people have been highly aware of environmental protection, forming an intangible supervision mechanism on the government. Environmental protection measures are needed in both urban construction and industrial development. It is required by Zhanjiang people, and it constitutes the biggest advantage for us to keep the “Zhanjiang blue”. To this end, we firmly implement the “Double Blue” strategy, and we are determined to take the road featuring green, low carbon and cyclic development, striving for a win-win situation of development and environmental protection. First, we must strengthen environmental access. We will fully implement environmental planning and environmental function regionalization to guarantee the environment is protected during industry development. The primary condition for new projects to settle in Zhanjiang is to meet the standard of environmental protection. Meanwhile, we strive to expand the application of new energy, which has been used on 1,000 buses including LPG, LNG and all-electric battery buses. Second, we will promote the “water control” project. We will always take the protection of drinking water as the first priority in improving people’s livelihood, and we will further improve the drinking water source to create a name card of “green water” for the city, thus discovering, displaying and sublimating the beauty of Zhanjiang. Third, we will develop Zhanjiang into a tourist city, so as to make Zhanjiang much more attractive not only to local residents but also to people of the whole nation and the world. Fourth, we will develop Zhanjiang into a “Footprint City”. We should adhere to the principle of giving priority to public transportation and pedestrians. We should also encourage local residents to ride bikes instead of drive cars for their daily commute. First, the rental system of public bikes will be optimized. A total of 272 rental points of public bikes have been built in the downtown area, and the first 5,000 bikes will be put into use on New Year’s Day. Citizens just need to pay 60 yuan each year for the use of public bikes. Secondly, we will pay attention to scientific management of electric vehicles, and in terms of traffic management, we should not only take cars and bicycles into consideration, but also leave some space for electric vehicles. There are now nearly 400,000 electric vehicles in Zhanjiang for which we have conducted scientific guidance and standardized management. By using clean energy, electric vehicles are low-carbon and green. They also comply with speed specifications and traffic order. Therefore, we encourage their development. At the same time, we adopt demand-oriented management, guiding consumers to adopt low-carbon travel rather than regard cars as a priority. Thirdly, we will speed up the construction of urban greenways. A complete network of greenways has been basically built in Zhanjiang, and the urban greenway network has reached 70 kilometers. Greenways serves as a natural and artificial landscape route available to pedestrians and bikes. Next time you come to Zhanjiang, I can accompany you to explore the streets on bikes to experience the real Zhanjiang and taste Zhanjiang snacks with local characteristics.

                                             Beautiful Zhanjiang: Blue sea and blue sky

Tom Clifford: Zhanjiang is developing tourism, but how can it attract more tourists?

Wang: First, the top priority is promotion. Although Zhanjing is a renowned beautiful city, it is still not widely known, and many people have heard about Zhanjiang but have never been here. As a mayor, one of my most urgent tasks is to promote this city to China and the world. The newly-designed English website of the Zhanjiang government can serve as an open window. Second, we should make more efforts to preserve and discover the beauty of the city. With boundless blue waves, quiet and magnificent bays, exciting islands, romantic beaches, delicious seafood and ports with cargo throughput volume exceeding 100 million tons, Zhanjiang is indeed gorgeous and endowed with countless maritime elements and charming scenery in South China.

Meanwhile, Zhanjiang is also a peninsula city. Leizhou Peninsula, one of China’s three largest peninsulas, is quite charming. With boundless fertile land, the peninsula is the best place for people to relax and avoid the hustle and bustle of city life. The vast ocean and boundless land will get one’s mind free and relaxed. Leizhou Peninsula is also a volcanic island. The famous Huguangyan, a volcanic lake, was formed due to volcanic eruption. Known by geologists as a maar lake, there are only two such lakes in the world. In short, Zhanjiang abounds with rich tourist resources. Here you can enjoy the unique sceneries and natural magic. We are glad to see that due to the city’s characteristic and diversified scenic spots, improved infrastructure and good reputation, an increasing number of foreign tourists have come to Zhanjiang. In the past three years, we have received 190,000 inbound tourists on average annually, including 103,000 travelers from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan and 87,000 foreigners, of whom 20,000 were from Southeast Asian countries. We hope that through the new English website of the Zhanjiang municipal government, more and more foreigners can learn about Zhanjiang and its “blue sea and blue sky” and come for travel.