Action plan for Yangtze River zone unveiled

A three-year action plan for the development of the Yangtze River Delta Ecology and Greenery Integration Demonstration Zone was unveiled on Thursday, covering projects including the west extension of Metro Line 17 and Fudan University’s Qingpu campus. 

The Line 17 extension will stretch 13 kilometers and construction of the 6.6-kilometer Xicen-Oriental Land section is due to start in late June. It will be operational at the end of 2023.

Fudan University will set up an innovation college in the area surrounding the Huawei R&D Center, covering majors such as computing and intelligence, integrated circuits and micro-nano electronics, biotechnology and biomedical engineering, and next-generation communication engineering. The college will also strengthen cooperation with Huawei and other technology-based enterprises at the same time to provide talent in short supply. Around 8,000 students will be enrolled. 

The time of its construction has yet to be announced. 

The action plan issued by Shanghai's Qingpu District, Suzhou in neighboring Jiangsu Province and Jiaxing in neighboring Zhejiang Province, specifies tasks and timetables for major projects in the zone between 2021 to 2023.

The Yangtze River Delta region has one of the most active, open and innovative economies in China. The demonstration zone concept was first proposed in January 2019, and the development of the region has become a national strategy.

Qingpu District is promoting a number of major construction projects in ecological and environmental protection, industrial innovation and livelihood services.

"The three-year action plan focuses on the green shore of lakes, the source of innovation and the minds of the people," said Zhang Zhongwei, deputy director of the demonstration zone’s executive committee. 

The Huawei R&D center project, which started construction in September last year with a planned total investment of about 10 billion yuan, will be completed in 2023.

According to the action plan, Qingpu Xicen Science and Technology Innovation Center, as a centralized demonstration project in the action plan, will continue to focus on promoting the construction of the Huawei R&D center, accelerate the building of the Xicen Science and Technology Innovation Arena and establish a complete public service system.

In terms of people's livelihood services, Qingpu District will build a top-level specialist hospital integrating medicine, education, research and maternal and child care services. It's to be completed by the end of this year.