Jiangxi province boosts high-level integration with Bay Area

East China's Jiangxi province has always seen Guangdong and the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macao as important channels to promote high-level opening-up to the world and attract investment and talents, according to the local government.

Jiangxi is located on the south bank of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. It is the hinterland of the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta.

Hong Kong is now Jiangxi's first source of non-mainland investment. In 2022, the province added 466 Hong Kong-funded enterprises, with the actual utilization of Hong Kong capital reaching $1.79 billion, accounting for 82.5 percent of the province's total.

Accelerating the integration into the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is an important way for Jiangxi to promote high-standard cooperation and achieve high-quality development, local officials said.

Since 2002, the province has held 20 sessions of an economic and trade cooperation and promotion conference in conjunction with the Bay Area.

This year's event was held from April 19 to 21 in Guangzhou and Shenzhen. Eight investment promotion activities were organized during the event, covering such industries as electronic information, agriculture, tourism, emerging sectors, Jingdezhen ceramics, new energy, new materials and digital economy.

Cities in Jiangxi have also established close relationships with important cities in the Bay Area. For instance, Nanchang has signed cooperation agreements with seven Bay Area cities, including Guangzhou.

Ganzhou, which serves as a major gateway between Jiangxi and the Bay Area, has developed a special cooperation zone with Shenzhen. The two cities, as well as Ji'an and Dongguan, have reached cooperation agreements in building industrial development platforms, deepening collaborative sci-tech innovation, boosting rural vitalization and improving basic public services.

Moreover, comprehensive cooperation between Ganzhou and Guangzhou economic zones, Longnan and Zengcheng economic zones, and Ganzhou and Shenzhen high-tech zones has been carried out by undertaking projects, coordinating industries and exchanging talents.

Speaking of financial cooperation, Jiangxi has added 28 new companies listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange since 2018, bringing the total number to 51, and nine new companies listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, bringing the total to 25.

Also, 17 Jiangxi companies have raised nearly $5 billion by issuing overseas bonds via Hong Kong, while 169 Jiangxi companies set up branches in the special administrative region.

The province is transforming into an industrial base of sci-tech innovation industries from the Bay Area. A number of projects involved in electronic information, intelligent equipment, new energy, new materials and biomedicine have settled down in Jiangxi, injecting new vitality into provincial economic development.

Electronic information, for example, is a fundamental and pillar industry in Jiangxi. In 2022, the industry's operation revenue exceeded 1 trillion yuan ($145.3 billion) for the first time to 1.01 trillion yuan, an increase of 32.2 percent year-on-year.

The province boasts five national new industrialization (electronic information) industry demonstration bases, and has cultivated 23 distinctive provincial-level industrial clusters in the sector.

New materials is another pillar industry in the province, with rich reserves of non-ferrous metals such as copper, tungsten, rare earth and lithium.

Mobile internet of things and virtual reality have become the "new business card" of Jiangxi's industries. In 2022, the added value of the digital economy's core industries reached 267.87 billion yuan in the province, up 16.8 percent year-on-year.

Jiangxi's agriculture occupies an important position in the country, of which organic, green and pollution-free food is a promising prospect.

Taking advantage of the industry, Jiangxi has built 34 green fruit and vegetable production bases in the Bay Area. The province now supplies a quarter of daily necessities like fresh vegetables, pigs and freshwater fish to Hong Kong residents.

Convenient transportation is key to boosting economic development and trade cooperation.

Jiangxi's operating mileage of railways exceeds 5,200 kilometers, including more than 2,000 km attributed to high-speed railways. The Ganzhou-Shenzhen High-Speed Railway started to operate at the end of 2021, and construction of the Ruijin-Meizhou Railway began in November 2022.

Five expressways from Jiangxi to Guangdong have been opened and two are under construction. The province provides rail-sea combined transportation modes to Shenzhen and Guangzhou. Also, more than 120 passenger and cargo flights operate round trips weekly between Jiangxi and Guangdong.

Depending on its comprehensive transport network featuring land, sea and air routes, the province has developed 50 logistics industry clusters, 90-plus logistics parks and a large number of well-known logistics enterprises.

Moreover, Jiangxi has taken action to build a better business environment. It has streamlined administrative approval procedures and promoted one-stop government services that enable access to related services through a single website.

As a result, entrepreneurs can apply online to start businesses, and manage to get a business license, invoice and official seals in as soon as one working day.

The province has also issued a series of preferential policies to attract investment. In 2022, for example, it issued 30 measures to reduce corporate costs and increase efficiency, and 43 measures to stabilize the economy.

So far, a total of 212 Fortune Global 500 companies, including 120 foreign companies, have invested in 510 projects in Jiangxi. In 2022, the province attracted 1.16 trillion yuan of investment in total.

Also that year, the province's GDP stood at 3.2 trillion yuan, and its year-on-year growth rate hit 4.7 percent, ranking first in the country. The added value of industries above designated size has increased by 7.1 percent, ranking seventh in the country, and the added value of the manufacturing industry accounted for about 33 percent of its GDP.