Xinhua Insight: Coordinated momentum needed for area surrounding capital

Beijing and its neighbors will focus on coordinating economic development in 2015 in order to be a leading force for the national economy, according to a newly-released municipal work report.

The national capital, along with Tianjin Municipality and Hubei Province, a region referred to as Jingjinji, were the target of a national initiative set forth by Chinese President Xi Jinping in February 2014.

Urging coordination and integration, the initiative seeks to balance development, the environment, population and resources, while building an economic zone surrounding Beijing.

More than 100 million people live in the Jingjinji zone, which has a combined area of 216,000 square km. Yet there is a big development gap between Beijing and Hebei. Heavily polluted Hebei still has several million people living in poverty and faces the heavy task of cutting excessive iron, steel, cement and glass capacity.

The three urgently need to coordinate to solve the air pollution problem.

The implementation of the strategy is on the top of the work agenda for the Beijing municipal government in 2015, according to a government work report delivered to the municipal legislature on Friday by Mayor Wang Anshun.

With a population of 21 million, the overcrowded capital is struggling to slow down population growth and deal with frequent bouts of choking smog.

Beijing will accelerate the transfer of non-essential functions, such as general manufacturing, downtown wholesale markets as well as some educational and medical services this year, according to the report.

The city will "lay out the annual task list for transportation infrastructure integration, ecological and environmental protection and industrial transfer, so as to make new progress as soon as possible," the report said.

Hebei will push for in-depth and substantial cooperation with Tianjin and Beijing this year, said the Hebei government earlier this month in its work report.

Apart from improving "bottleneck" highways, Hebei will better cooperation in air pollution control and seek to build industrial parks and innovation platforms this year.

The country approved three new free trade parks in Tianjin, and Guangdong and Fujian provinces in December. The parks are similar to the Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone inaugurated in September 2013.

The Tianjin free trade area, which will be inaugurated in the first half of this year, will contribute to the coordinated development of the Jingjinji region, according to Tianjin officials.

The Jingjinji region's total gross domestic product accounted for about 10 percent of the country's total last year. It is dubbed the third new growth pole of China after the Pearl River Delta in southern Guangdong Province and the Yangtze River Delta region in the east.

The region is striving to be a new growth pole relying on innovation, industrial upgrading and restructuring in line with the country's drive to enhance growth quality and achieve balanced development.

As evident in the shroud of thick smog in Beijing over the weekend, the city failed to meet a key pollution reduction target last year with annual average density of PM2.5 down only four percent, less than the five percent target.

To reduce pollution, Beijing closed 392 companies including furniture and machinery factories, foundries and other polluters. The city also removed 470,000 old vehicles from the roads and strengthened environmental law enforcement.

Environmental protection authorities in Beijing uncovered nearly 3,000 law violation cases and issued fines totalling 100 million yuan (1,600,000 U.S. dollars), three times more than the amount of the previous year.

The PM2.5 index fell 12 percent in Hebei and 13.5 percent in Tianjin last year.

Beijing vows to reduce the PM2.5 density by five percent. Hebei plans a a target of more than four percent in 2015.

Beijing submitted its official 2022 Winter Olympic Games bid in early January. The bid is an opportunity and drive to push forward the balanced development of Beijing and its neighbors, said Beijing Mayor Wang Anshun.

The top-level design for the coordinated development strategy of Beijing and its neighbors is predicted to be released soon. More progress is to be made after the guideline comes out. Endi