Hongqiao CBD to be the area's 'power core'

The Hongqiao Central Business District will serve as a “power core” of the big Hongqiao area, gathering and also radiating the growth momentum of the Yangtze River Delta and even broader hinterland.

The Hongqiao CBD, as the core area of the Hongqiao International Hub for Opening Up to be built according to a national-level plan, covered 151 square kilometers, mainly serving as an international CBD, a new platform of the international trade center and an integrated transport hub, said Chen Yin, executive vice mayor of Shanghai.

Outside the CBD area, the overall plan also mentioned the development of the northern and southern expansion areas, covering some key business and industrial districts in the Yangtze River Delta such as Suzhou Industrial Park, Xiangcheng District, one of five urban districts of Suzhou, and Haining, a county-level city in Zhejiang Province.

The northern expansion area focuses on building a central business cooperation zone, an international trade coordinated development zone, and a functional area of the comprehensive transport hub, Li said.

Meanwhile, in the southern expansion area there will be an international business district which can offer tourism services with cultural features, a digital trade innovation and development zone as well as a new platform for combined transport by river, sea, air and railway.

The Hongqiao CBD and the two expansion areas in total cover an area of 7,000 square kilometers, of which 2,100 square kilometers are in Shanghai, accounting for a third of the city’s total area. 

The total economic aggregate in this whole region approximated 2.3 trillion yuan (US$355.9 billion) in 2020, which can no doubt become one of the regions with the strongest development vitality, the greatest potential and the highest level of openness in the Yangtze River Delta, Li said.

The overall plan also clarified that the Hongqiao hub will direct major efforts to promote the three core functions of big transport, big exhibitions and big commerce. With this aim, the city has preliminarily listed a total of 102 policies and measures, functional platforms, and major projects, of which 75 involve Shanghai.

For instance, Min Shilin, executive deputy director of the Hongqiao CBD administrative committee, pledged to upgrade industrial capacity and develop the area into a first-class international CBD.

The Greenland Global Commodity Trading Hub Group said that the company will make full use of its industrial and geographical advantages of being within the Hongqiao CBD to seize the new opportunities, and build a new platform for international trade as well as a distribution center for import commodities.

Spring Airlines also expressed their expectation for the construction of Hongqiao open hub, hoping it will accelerate the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta region. “This will enable our business in Shanghai to expand the market size from the 24 million people in the city to 220 million people in the Delta region, and increase the market size for our headquarters by 10 times,” an official with Spring Airlines said.