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November 18, 2015

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Home » City specials » Hangzhou

2016 G20 summit a moment of pride for Hangzhou

CHINA will host the 2016 Group of Twenty (G20) summit in the eastern city of Hangzhou, best known for its scenic West Lake, President Xi Jinping announced during the recent 2015 G20 summit held in Turkey.

The Hangzhou summit, to be held on September 4-5, will be themed “Building an innovative, invigorated, interconnected and inclusive world economy,” Xi said in Turkey.

The China meet will focus on innovating growth patterns, improving global economic and financial governance, boosting international trade and investment, and promoting inclusive and interconnected development, Xi told the world leaders.

“We need to increase the representation and voice of the emerging market economies and developing countries (in global governance), so as to enhance the capabilities of the world economy to resist risks,” the president said.

“I will see you at the West Lake next September,” he added.

Hangzhou, a centuries-old city with a population of nearly 8.9 million, is the capital and the largest city of Zhejiang Province.

Zhejiang, well-known for its robust privately owned businesses, ranked fourth among the 31 provincial-level regions on the Chinese mainland in terms of GDP in 2014.

Xi worked in Zhejiang between 2002 and 2007 as head of the provincial committee of the Communist Party of China.

The major venue of the 2016 G20 summit will be the Hangzhou International Expo Center being built at Binjiang District, which is expected to be the world’s first-class hi-tech industrial zone by 2020.

The district will also build an entrepreneurship bay area.

Taking other bay areas, including San Francisco’s, as references and examples, the area is expected to be one of the most attractive entrepreneurship centers of the nation in the near future.

Currently the local bay area is home to a batch of creative companies like e-commerce giant Alibaba and large digital technology company Hikvison.

“In Binjiang, those enterprises established, grew, and then became industry leaders,” said Zhan Min, Party secretary of Binjiang District.

“The government will keep focusing on enterprises so as to accelerate the integration of the city and the high-tech industry.”

In addition to the well-known large-scale enterprises, Binjiang District still serves a bunch of small companies that also have edge over other companies.

A few years ago, Vivalnk developed a digital skin tattoo for Google. Its product is used to identify a user and guarantee the safety of his personal information. It has now developed a new digital skin tattoo for Hangzhou, which is expected to spread across world in the future.

“We established a branch in Silicon Valley that is used to exchange professionals and information from home and abroad, but we chose to set up the headquarters in Binjiang,” said Zhao Hui, CEO of Vivalnk.

According to Hangzhou’s third-quarter economic development statistics, Binjiang’s growth rate was 13.2 percent. The secondary and tertiary industries accounted for the majority of the district’s economy. The profit of famous portal website NetEase occupied 44.8 percent of the service industry.

China will take over the G20 presidency on December 1, 2015, and a series of related meetings will be held next year, according to Wang Xiaolong, the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s special envoy on G20 affairs.

The G20 is the main forum for global economic and financial cooperation that brings together the world’s most advanced and emerging economies, representing around 85 percent of global GDP, 80 percent of world trade, and two-thirds of the world population.

The G20 started in 1999 as a meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors in the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis. The members included 19 individual countries along with the European Union.

In 2008, the first G20 summit was held in Washington DC in the United States, and the group played a key role to deal with the global financial crisis.

The G20 presidency rotates annually among its members. To ensure continuity, the presidency is supported by a “troika” made up of the current, immediate past and next host countries. In 2015, the members of the “troika” are Turkey, Australia and China.

Reactions from people in Hangzhou

Zong Qinghou, founder of Wahaha Group, which is based in Hangzhou

I’ve been to so many cities and countries but I like my hometown Hangzhou because it is clean and pretty. The summit will be a great opportunity for Hangzhou’s urban and economic development, and for Hangzhou and Zhejiang merchants.

 

Ye Hui, a worker at Hangzhou Environment Monitoring Center

I felt both pleasure and pressure once I heard the news because it means people will ask for a higher requirement of air quality. We will ensure better service for the citizens and for the summit by announcing accurate data about weather and air quality three or even five days in advance.

 

Hisazumi Saborou, chairman of Hisazumi Technology Co

I am from Gifu, Japan, a sister city of Hangzhou. I am one of the earliest foreign merchants to come to the Chinese mainland to do business. Since I have been in Hangzhou for so many years I have seen cross-border business growing vigorously. G20 is a good news for cross-border business. A city can influence a person for life. I am glad I chose Hangzhou, married a Hangzhou woman and can speak good Hangzhou dialect.

 

Yang Zhangyao, retired worker

I have been living in Hangzhou for 64 years. I believe G20’s coming proves the achievement of Hangzhou’s urban construction, and I am proud of that. I hope next year Hangzhou will be less jammed, more beautiful, and Hangzhou people will show great hospitality to guests.

 

Zhang Hailong, journalist and poet

G20 will be Hangzhou’s debut on the international stage, and put Hangzhou on the international map. After the event Hangzhou will step into a post-G20 era. Before that, Hangzhou needs to prove why it is qualified (to hold such a big event).

 

Zhang Peidong, economic and commercial counselor of China’s embassy in Thailand

G20 will greatly internationalize Hangzhou. To be an international city, it needs to be, first of all, livable, and own a certain ratio between domestic population and expatriate population, which asks the city to utilize itself on transport, environment protection, air quality, finance service and informationization. I suggest Hangzhou maintain its own features, rather than pursuing the size or scale. It is smart to show your own cultural characteristics in city management and infrastructure construction.

 

Chen Chouyong, deputy secretary and professor of Hangzhou Dianzi University

G20’s means an honor and opportunity. Hangzhou boasts scenic, cultural and historical advantages, sustainable and healthy economy, growing innovative industry, and efficient and organized city management. G20 will be a new business card of Hangzhou, bringing with it more multi-lateral cooperation and better policies from the central government.

It will benefit local people’s life by bettering its infrastructure, transport and environment.




 

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