Blueprint mapped out for development of shenzhen city

THE sixth Shenzhen Municipal Committee of the CPC held the ninth plenary session Sunday to summarize the city's accomplishments in 2017 and lay out long-term plans for the city's development, the Shenzhen Special Zone Daily reported yesterday.

Wang Weizhong, Party chief of Shenzhen, delivered a work report during the session on behalf of the standing committee of the city's Party committee.

According to the session, Shenzhen will be built into a modern, international and innovative city by 2020, with a moderately prosperous society in all respects. By 2035, the city will have been developed into a global innovation hub and realized socialist modernization. As of the middle of this century, the city will have become an innovation-oriented global city with excellent competitiveness and influence.

Participants in the session attended panel discussions Sunday afternoon to share their ideas and suggestions for promoting the city's future development.

Many participants talked about building more well-known Shenzhen brands during the discussion. They mentioned that Shenzhen is a city of design and that it should give full play to the advantages of its creative design industry and strengthen cooperation with Hong Kong and Macao.

Xin Jie, Party chief of the Shenzhen Metro Group, emphasized the importance of building a credit city in the discussion. He said Shenzhen should expedite the establishment of credit systems and introduce relevant laws and regulations to facilitate trustworthy individuals and firms and blacklist dishonest ones.

Water quality improvement was one of the city's main tasks last year and it will remain a top priority of the city's development this year. Wang Lixin, Party chief of the city's water affairs bureau, said the city invested 19.8 billion yuan (US$3.07 billion) in water quality improvement projects last year.

Wang said the city will continue to push forward with water quality improvement work this year, building 2,353 kilometers of a sewage pipe network and investing 30 billion yuan into improving the water quality of 115 rivers in the city. He said the city will launch a "direct drinking water" project this year, so residents will be able to get potable water directly from the tap by 2025.

Guo Yurong, Party secretary of the Southern University of Science and Technology, talked about the importance of developing universities and scientific institutions when it comes to building Shenzhen into an internationally competitive innovation hub.

Guo believes that apart from introducing prestigious universities from outside the city, Shenzhen should also promote the development of local universities as a way to improve the quality of the city's higher education.

Luo Lexuan, director of the city's family planning and health commission, said quality medical resources and high-level medical professionals are in demand in Shenzhen. "The city's '3R Project' has introduced more than 170 medical teams to Shenzhen in recent years, and has played an active role in improving the quality of the city's medical services," Luo said.

Many participants also mentioned that one way to improve people's livelihood would be to enlarge the housing supply to relieve the shortage of affordable housing in the city.

Zhang Xuefan, Party chief of the city's housing bureau, said the city has explored different ways to tackle the land shortage problem and it will have to provide at least 100,000 government-subsidized apartments each year to ensure that the housing supply can meet the demand.

Source:Shenzhen Daily