translated by Ma Jinyu, Xu Zhiliang

To Seek Cooperation through Opening up and Promote Reform through Innovation: the Upgrades and Development of BGEZ (Guangxi) Have Been Initiated

translated by Ma Jinyu, Xu Zhiliang

On the map of China, it can be seen that there is a vast expanse of blue ocean with surging waves in the northwest of South China Sea.—That is called the Guangxi Beibu Gulf. Serving as the port of departure of the ancient Maritime Silk Road, it presented thriving sights at M one time. In its subsequent historical changes for over one thousand years, due to various reasons, the Beibu Gulf had been buried and forgotten after appearing on the map of regional economy just like the water. Time f ies. After entering the new century, the the once-quiet gulf has been enjoying significant development opportunitiieess..

IInn MMaarrcchh 22000066,, tthhee BBeeiibbuu GGuullff EEccoonnoommiicc ZZoonnee ((BBGGEEZZ)) was officially established; in January 2008, with the was implementation of “Guangxi Beibu Gulf Economic Zone i Development Scheme” approved by the state, the opening-up and development of BGEZ was raised as a national strategy. Since then, BGEZ began to shoot a up at a remarkable “speed of the Beibu Gulf”. Its reform up at and development have been progressing well and springing up, thus heartening reports of victories are spri pouring in constantly. After nearly ten years of pioneering pouring i and development, BGEZ has turned from a border area in western China into a multi-regional cooperation area center, from a supporting role in the development of ce

CHINA-ASEAN PANORAMA economy into a leading actor of Guangxi’s opening- up and development, from a local development plan into a national development strategy, and from an unknown area into a notable hot spot of investment and unkn development. In a review of the development course over the past ten years, the BGEZ opened an “era of o the Beibu Gulf” belonging to Guangxi and changing the the course of its history. It is referred to as “an area which is course of i endowed with fertile soils for thriving business” and “an endowed area which leads the whole region of Guangxi to rise up”. area wh

In particular, the BGEZ, centering on the establishment In pa of logistics base, business base, processing and manufacturing base and information exchange center to man serve China-ASEAN opening up and cooperation, has become a strategic highland to drive and support the be large-scale development in west China, a new strategic larg pivot for the opening up and development of Southwest piv and South-central China and an economic cooperation a zone in the international region to organically link the zone i 21st Century Maritime Silk Road with the Silk Road Belt. 21st C With the opening up and cooperation taking the lead, Wi a new pattern of regional linkage development is being a ne built; with the reform and innovation as the driving force, built; wi new strengths of regional opening up and development ne are being created. Amazing achievements haven beenmmaaddee in the reform and development of BGEZ: the economy enjoys a continuous and rapid growth, with an annual average growth rate of 16.3 percent which is over 2 percent higher than the world average, becoming the top runner of leading the development of Guangxi; with the opening up and development of BGEZ risen as the national strategy and deeply integrated into a series of major strategic layouts of the state, the strategic position of Guangxi in the regional development pattern of China has been effectively upgraded; the industrial cluster near the sea is taking shape gradually, a batch of major projects has been established and put into production, preliminarily formulating the industrial layout based on petrochemical, metallurgy, forest pulp paper, electronics, information, energy and light industrial food; the infrastructure has been increasingly improved, a grand 100,000,000-ton level port built up, and “one-hour economy circle” created; the bonded logistics system has been improved and upgraded constantly, and an open and cooperative platform with powerful features has taken shape initially; the regional cooperation has made steady headway, and the Pan-Beibu Gulf regional cooperation and cooperation of the autonomous region and cities have been continuously strengthened, making the region the cutting edge and bridge of linking China with ASEAN; and greater efforts have been made in reforming the institutional mechanism, the innovation drives have burst out enormous development vitality and potential, showing unlimited development prospects.

Land and Sea Routes Make Connectivity Smooth

“If you want to get rich, build a road.”Modern transportation is the important premise and foundation of economic development. In the early days of BGEZ, to solve the prominent problems such as the stagnant transportation infrastructure, the defective collecting and distributing transportation system and the lower connectivity, it sticks to the principle of“transportation first”, exerts its efforts to open up the inside and outside routes, focuses on key routes, nodes and projects, and continues to set of a tide of constructing transportation infrastructure: reinforcing the transportation hub, opening up the obstructed routes, linking disconnected ends, shoring up weak spots, strengthening the density of road network, improving the structure of road network, upgrading the quality of road network, and promoting the effective connection between the transportation hub and major node cities. After years of unremitting ef orts, considerable progress has been made in the construction of the BGEZ’s transportation infrastructure. Thus, a modern comprehensive transportation system, which links rivers and seas, connects the internal and external traffic, covers both urban and rural areas and adopts transmodality, is taking shape; a connectivity pattern for promoting circulation and removing stasis of transportation is creating favorable conditions that land and sea routes make connectivity smooth for economic development.

In the trans-provincial, sea-crossingand border-crossing routes, opening up the obstructed outward routes is a vital task of building the BGEZ’s modern transportation system. For this reason, oriented at the southwestern and southcentral regions of China, the area of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao and the ASEAN region, the BGEZ emphasizes on the construction of trans-provincial, seacrossing and border-crossing routes to form a stereoscopic and comprehensive transmodality system, which integrates itself with neighboring provinces and countries through ef ectively connecting various means of transportation. To date, six highways leading to Vietnam and China’ provinces including Yunnan, Guizhou, Hunan and Guangdong have been built and opened to traffic, so have the high-speed rails leading to Guangdong, Hunan and Guizhou. Moreover, the high-speed rail leading to Yunnan is in rapid construction. The north-south land-route passageway to make the “Silk and Belt” linked is being built quickly. Now it takes only three hours to travel from Nanning to Guangzhou, and ten hours to travel from Nanning to Beijing. A network of highways and high-speed rails has been extended to all cities within the BGEZ, and “one-hour economic circle” has basically taken shape.

In the maritime connectivity, Guangxi Beibu Gulf Port, which is endowed with regional advantages of connecting the south to the north, serves as an important hub of the China-ASEAN maritime corridor. The BGEZ takes port integration as a turning point, seizes the opportunity of the Pan-Beibu Gulf cooperation and makes “strengthening port-shipping and logistics cooperation; building international sea routes”a strategic focus; it opens up new international sea routes, develops the ocean transportation industry, strengthens the construction of logistics transportation base and further enhances maritime connectivity with the ASEAN countries by actively cultivating the containers’ main shipping lines. As of now, the sea shipping network of Beibu Gulf Port has provided global coverage, linking up with 221 ports in over 80 countries and regions. As the accelerated construction of the China-AEAN port-city cooperation network base progresses, the Qinzhou Port has opened the regular foreign trade container liner route, namely, Qinzhou Port(China)-South Korea-Indonesia-Thailand-Vietnam, to the ASEAN region. At present, the number of regular container liner routes of Beibu Gulf Port amounts to 35, establishing maritime links with 7 ASEAN countries such as Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia and building a port-city network together with 46 port cities in the ASEAN region.

The well-developed network of highways

In the aviation connectivity, BGEZ has been constantly deepening its aviation cooperation with the ASEAN countries, actively opening new air routes and creating the aviation connectivity, thus improving the airport aviation system of BGEZ increasingly, among which Nanning is accelerating the construction of central airport oriented at the ASEAN region, and it has opened 12 direct air routes to the ASEAN countries, making Nanning Port one of two airports linking Guangxi with ASEAN.

Industrial Cooperation Cultivates and Enforces Strength

Industry is the foundation of regional economy. Whether the regional economy is strong or not depends on its industrial strength. Since the establishment of BGEZ, it has been taking the cultivation and expansion of core leading industry as a strategic task. By adopting the market-oriented policy and regarding industrial parks as the carriers, BGEZ makes functional orientations of each city in the area and industrial focuses clear and arranges major industrial projects according to local conditions, to form scientif c and reasonable industrial divisions and realize differentiated and characteristic development. In particular, the advantages of coastal ports are highlighted, port-centered industry and ocean industry prioritized, and the cluster development of modern port-centered industries accelerated.

In the industrial development of the BGEZ, there is a prominent highlight-the booming industry cooperation. With the constant reinforcement of the internal and external connectivity of BGEZ, superior conditions and environment have been created for accelerating the integration of BGEZ into a larger-scale regional economic cooperation and attracting the investment and implementation of more and more industrial projects. In fact, over the years, the BGEZ has been taking advantage of a favorable situation to broaden its horizon, closely centering on industrial cooperation and major projects, taking proactive measures to do business overseas and attracting global businesses and investment. Consequently, significant progress and remarkable achievements have been made in promoting the investment and implementation of major landmark projects and industrial projects. In recent year, in particular, state-owned and private enterprises as well as enterprises from overseas, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan are very optimistic about the BGEZ and flocked here with huge investments, achieving exciting industrial agglomeration effects. Of those, almost 20 enterprises in the Fortune 500 like Cargill, Budweiser, Degussa, Stora Enso, PetroChina, Chalco, Wuhan Iron & Steel Corporation, China Electronics Corp and Foxconn as well as a large number of wellknown enterprises at home and abroad have kept their foothold and tasted the sweetness in the BGEZ.

Opening up leads to industrial cooperation, and cooperation enhances industrial agglomeration. The intuitive and authentic data have outlined the economic progress in BGEZ. In 2014,within the BGEZ, the GDP of four cities, namely, Nanning, Beihai, Qinzhou and Fangchenggang, reached 544.821 billion yuan, 2.84 times increase between 2006 and 2014, which rose from 29.5% of Guangxi’s total GDP to 34.8%; the fiscal revenue amounted to 85.762 billion yuan, a four-fold increase compared with 2006, which jumped from 30.1% of that of Guangxi to 39.7%; the volume of investment in f xed asset totaled 481.012 billion yuan, 5.7 times increase, elevated from 32.1% of that of Guangxi to 36.2%; the total volume of imports and exports increased by 6.1 times to US$19.117 billion, accounting for 47.1% of that of Guangxi.

China-Malaysia Qinzhou Industrial Park

Establish Platforms to Achieve Opening and Win-win Results

Financial openness motivates economic development. The most important goal of opening up and development in the BGEZ is to raise its opening and cooperation level, obtain more external sources and propel its own growth. Since its inception, the BGEZ has fully utilized its geographical advantage, taken initiative to expand its opening and cooperation, made every endeavor to build itself as the core area with the highest degree of openness and strongest driving force and constantly developed an all-dimensional and multi-layered pattern for opening and cooperation.

The BGEZ’s opening up and cooperation with ASEAN should be the most striking part in this aspect. The BGEZ is an area with the longest history and the most intimate relations with ASEAN. By taking ASEAN-oriented strategy as its guidance and focusing on the construction of the upgraded version of the CAFTA and Maritime Silk Road, the BGEZ established and improved mechanisms like China-ASEAN Expo, China-ASEAN Business & Investment Summit and Pan-Beibu Gulf Economic Cooperation Forum, advanced the development of cooperation platforms such as close-border financial reform pilot zone, China-Malaysia Qinzhou Industrial Park, Malaysia-China Kuantan Industrial Park, Dongxing National Key Development and Opening-up Experimental Zone and made efforts to set up new platforms and mechanisms including China-ASEAN regional f nancial center, international shipping center, China-Vietnam cross-border economic cooperation zone, maritime economic cooperation demonstration zone, China (Beibu Gulf) free trade pilot area. The establishment and improvement of abovementioned platforms and mechanisms have exerted far-reaching influences on deepening and expanding the opening up and cooperation with ASEAN and released great ef ects.

As for economic and trade relations, ASEAN has been the biggest trading partner of Guangxi for 14 consecutive years as well as the second largest source of foreign investment. The trade scale between BGEZ and ASEAN ranks f rst in central and west regions of China. The BGEZ is an area with the richest trade fruits with ASEAN. The trade volume between BGEZ and ASEAN accounts for 90% of the total trade between Guangxi and ASEAN.

In terms of cooperation mechanisms, the annual CAEXPO and CABIS held in Nanning have become the most important and mature cooperation mechanisms between China and ASEAN, forging the “Nanning Channel”for China-ASEAN cooperation. Since the 1st Pan-Beibu Gulf Economic Cooperation Forum, Pan-Beibu Gulfeconomic cooperation has been gone through 8 years. As the construction of the CAFTA advances, both China and ASEAN countries have participated in the Pan-Beibu Gulf economic cooperation. Cooperation opportunities from China, ASEAN and even the rest of world are centralized here, adding momentum toward regional development. China-Malaysia Industrial Park and Malaysia-China Kuantan Industrial Park, as the third industrial park co-built by Chinese and foreign governments, started a new cooperation mode of “two countries, twin parks”.

Deepen the Innovation-driven Reform

It is a powerful engine to speed up the development of the BGEZ by deepening reform and driving innovation. The reform and innovation have created and cultivated the BGEZ. As the child of the reform and innovation, the BGEZ goes through the whole process of opening up and development of the Zone. Since its inception, the BGEZ insisted to take reform and innovation as its fundamental solutions, seek impetuses from reform, add advantages via innovation, treat emerging problems with new perspectives, get fresh ideas through new thinking and f nd out new approaches to new problems, created a great atmosphere of supporting, advocating, respecting and enhancing reforms and played a leading role in conquering the fortress of reform and breaking through development bottleneck in Guangxi.

The mode of administrative management has been innovated. By taking other provinces’ successful experience for reference and relying on crossadministrative division, Guangxi government and party committee established Guangxi Beibu Gulf Economic Zone Planning Construction and Administration Office with the purpose of coordinating the economic reform within the BGEZ, which started a coordination and management mode that is cross-sectoral and crossadministrative. The quickened reform makes BGEZ’s burden heavier. In June 2014, Guangxi government made a big decision to rename Beibu Gulf Economic Zone Planning Construction and Administration Office as Guangxi Beibu Gulf Economic Zone & Cooperation with ASEAN Office of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, adding with new functions like coordinating the construction of the new strategic pivot, promoting ASEAN-oriented cooperation, advancing the opening up and development in border area, enhancing the construction of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road as well as the coordination and development of Pan-Beibu Gulf economic cooperation.

The BGEZ has taken leading role in management system of industrial park. In July 2014, the Standing Committee of the Municipal Party Committee of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region deliberated and passed the overall plan for Guangxi pilot industrial park. In the plan, it clearly stated that China-Malaysia Qinzhou Industrial would be Guangxi’s pilot park, which needs to fulf ll the major targets of establishing development and management mechanism in accordance with international practices and setting up an innovative highland for Guangxi’s reform in 2 to 3 years. Later, Guangxi government reviewed and adopted the reform plan of Pingxiang Integrated Free Trade Zone. It put forward in the plan that Pingxiang Integrated Free Trade Zone should take leading role in several key areas and strive to explore new formats by focusing on the enrichment of contents, improvement of quality, innovation of reform and cross-border cooperation.

The integrated development has been conducted in the Beibu Gulf. Port is considered as the core advantage of the BGEZ. The disorderly competition and chaotic development of coastal resource have long existed in Beihai, Qinzhou and Fangchenggang. Hence, the BGEZ put forward a reform program to adopt unif ed planning, construction, deployment and management and establish Beibu Gulf International Port Group, which is market-based and with capital as its tie. Guangxi Beibu Gulf International Port Group was officially founded in February 2007. Beihai Port, Qinzhou Port and Fangchenggang Port were included into the Beibu Gulf. As the expression of “Beibu Gulf ports” was conf rmed by Guangxi government, the BGEZ has realized the unified planning, construction and management and effectively resolved issues like disperse production factors, segmented markets and impeded logistics, becoming a successful example for port integration in China. The three integrated ports have dramatically facilitated the infrastructure construction, further improved the collecting and dispatching system and administrative efficiency, optimized the service environment, promoted the rapid development of modern logistics, port and waterway service. The annual throughput in Beibu Gulf ports rose from 49.49 million tons in 2006 to 201.88 million tons in 2014, which has increased by three times.

The bonded logistics system has been planed and constructed. To innovate development, optimize environment as well as create new advantages, the BGEZ needs to establish a fully functioning bonded logistics system.

Since its inception, the BGEZ attached great importance to the construction of the bonded logistics system. With indepth investigations and great efforts, Qinzhou Free Trade Port Area and Pingxiang Integrated Free Trade Zone have been of cially approved by the State Council of China in May and September 2008 respectively, marking that the first bonded logistics system was launched in the BGEZ. Later in February 2009, Nanning Bonded Logistic Center was established. The construction of Beihai Export Processing Zone (Phase I) and Qinzhou Free Trade Port Area (Phase IIIII) passed the national acceptance and was put into operation. A customs system of special surveillance zone has been set up preliminarily in the BGEZ, serving as a symbolic platform for the opening up and development of the BGEZ.

The urban integration has been conducted. It is an urgent demand for the BGEZ as well as the good will of people to advance reform in the abovementioned four cities. In April 2013, Beibu Gulf Economic Zone urban integration development planning was approved by Guangxi government, which put forward that the urban integration should be conducted in 10 priority areas, including household registration, communications, financial service, tourism, urban system, industry and education resource. The urban integration has brought tangible benefits to local people and received widespread praise.

Comprehensive coordinated reform has been deepened. With the help of“Dual-core Driving” strategy, the BGEZ has strengthened its efforts and made bigger strides in reform. In October 2014,“Decisions on Several Issues Concerning Deepening the Reform in the Beibu Gulf Economic Zone” as well as the reform plan regarding household registration, port system, industrial park system and customs clearance integration were issued, showing the direction of reform in key areas within the BGEZ. Currently, reform measures have been promoted in a pragmatic manner and obtained phased results.

As financial openness sets sails, the reform in BGEZ is in full swing. Under the background of advancing the construction of the “Belt and Road”, the BGEZ has grasped this historic opportunity to implement the “Dual-core Driving” strategy for the BGEZ and the Pearl River-Xijiang River Economic Belt, actively integrated into the grand blueprint of co-building the Nanning-Singapore Economic Corridor and China-ASEAN Port Cities Cooperation Network and fully forged an upgraded version of the BGEZ with high spirits and a pioneering sense of innovation. A thriving and promising BGEZ is rising in the world.

中国驻柬埔寨大使馆政务参赞、代办檀勍生（右）接受本刊记者采访。