China publishes master plan for Xiongan New Area

BEIJING - China on Saturday published the master plan document for Xiongan New Area, creation of which is "a strategic decision with profound historic significance made by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) with Comrade Xi Jinping at the core."

"General Secretary Xi Jinping has planned for, made decisions on and promoted [the Xiongan New Area] in person, devoting painstaking efforts," reads the preface of the document released by the Hebei provincial authorities.

"The establishment of Xiongan New Area in Hebei province is a significant decision and arrangement by the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at the core to push forward the coordinated development of Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei," the plan reads.

Xiongan is another new area of "national significance" following the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone and Shanghai Pudong New Area, according to the document, which has been approved by the CPC Central Committee and the State Council.

It is "a strategy that will have lasting importance for the millennium to come, and a significant national event," the plan says.

The plan is the fundamental guideline on the planning and development of Xiongan New Area, mapping out the area's future by 2035 and looking ahead into the mid-21st century, it reads.

It has 10 chapters, namely the general requirements, developing scientific and reasonable layout, shaping the city landscape for a new era, building a beautiful natural ecology and environment, developing high-end and hi-tech industries, provision of quality shared public services, construction of fast and highly-efficient transportation network, building a green and smart new city, fostering modernized city security system, ensuring orderly and effective implementation of the plan.

In April 2017, China announced the establishment of Xiongan New Area, spanning three counties in Hebei province about 100 km southwest of Beijing.

Xiongan will be the location for Beijing's non-capital functions. The area will become a new home for Beijing's colleges, hospitals, business headquarters, and financial and public institutions that meet the requirement of Xiongan's status and development.

The document listed overall development goals for the new area.

By 2035, Xiongan will basically develop into a modern city that is green, intelligent, and livable, with relatively strong competitiveness and harmonious human-environment interaction.

By the middle of the century, it will become a significant part of the world-class Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei city cluster, effectively performing Beijing's non-capital functions and providing the Chinese solution to "big city malaise."

It will serve as an example of the country's high-quality development with world-leading economic and social indicators and a modernized governance system, which will manifest advantages of the socialist system with Chinese characteristics.

Xiongan is expected to become "a model city in the history of human development," the document says.

The document also requires that resources and environment carrying capacity must be taken as an inflexible constraint of space layout so that the population size, land use scale as well as the development intensity of the new area can be reasonably decided.

The document says that priority shall go to ecological protection while the new area is pursuing green development.

With the total area of construction land set at approximately 530 square kilometers, Xiongan will strictly control land use and cap its land development intensity at 30 percent.

About 10 percent of the new area's land will be put under permanent protection as basic farmland, while the population density will be no more than 10,000 people per square kilometer.

The document says that Xiongan New Area aims to explore a new pattern for urban-rural development.

Within a land area of 50 square kilometers, new types of villages will be developed which will feature thriving businesses, a pleasant living environment, sound infrastructure facilities and public services, and efficient grassroots governance.

The document says that ecological restoration work will be started in Baiyangdian Lake, including restoring the lake's area to 360 square kilometers. Meanwhile, water pollution will be treated while the forest coverage rate will rise from 11 percent to 40 percent.

Moreover, a negative list will be implemented to close down and ward off high-pollution and energy-intensive production.

In the long term, Baiyandian National Park will be established.