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March 3, 2015

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Home » City specials » Hangzhou

New district puts city close to 10m people

By Xu Wenwen | March 3, 2015, Tuesday | Print Edition

As Fuyang, a county-level city south of Hangzhou, became the ninth district of Hangzhou last month, Hangzhou’s population grew to nearly 10 million residents, making it the second-largest city in the Yangtze River Delta, following Shanghai.

And the new family member, now the largest among all districts, has expanded the size of Hangzhou city from 3,000-plus square kilometers to over 4,800 square kilometers.

The decision by the central government and Zhejiang provincial government “is to optimize allocation of resources and to better organize spaces,” said Gong Zheng, the mayor of Hangzhou.

Fuyang was an original source of Chinese paper, and today is a town known for manufacturing paper, racquets and racing boats. Also it features a national-level optical fiber and cable industry park.

It is home to the Fuchun Mountains, widely known because of the painting “Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains,” among the few surviving works by the painter Huang Gongwang (1269–1354) and considered to be among his greatest works.

Fuyang Party Secretary Jiang Jun said the change will bring many benefits, such as Fuyang residents enjoying the same social benefits as Hangzhou urban residents.

Fuyang officials can improve their capabilities through the upgrade, as well.

Jiang said Fuyang has increased its fiscal budget by 120 million yuan (US$19.22 million) this year to shorten its gap with urban Hangzhou in pension, heath care, unemployment subsidies and other social welfare.

Even a year ago Fuyang started to improve its ecology by cutting down on manufacturing by heavy-pollution industries. Over 70 paper-producing and electroplating factories were closed and the rest had their technology updated, resulting in 20 percent less wastewater discharge.

“Now as a part of Hangzhou, Fuyang is to develop smart industries with higher technology and quality and less pollution,” said Huang Haifeng, deputy director of Fuyang District.

The change is thought to be a method to increase Hangzhou’s economic performance.

“GDP growth of nearby cities like Nanjing and Suzhou (in Jiangsu Province) is catching up, which drives Hangzhou to take Fuyang into it, so as to form a bigger ‘central city’,” said Chen Jianjun, director of the Research Center for Regional and Urban Economy of Zhejiang University.

Nanjing’s GDP growth in 2014 was 10.1 percent while Hangzhou’s was around 8 percent.

With the inclusion of Fuyang, starting this year Hangzhou’s GDP scale will be calculated beyond a trillion yuan.

“More space is only one point; to raise the city’s radiating and absorptive capacity is another,” said Lan Weiqing of the Institute for Public Policy of Zhejiang University.

The city is encouraged by two previous successful examples of adding districts: Xiaoshan and Yuhang. According to the Hangzhou Statistics Bureau, last year the two districts contributed 30 percent of the city’s GDP.

However, the two districts have long been excluded from what’s considered urban Hangzhou, with many policies clearly written with “Yuhang and Xiaoshan not included.” Only this year have the duo gradually started to share the same public welfare policies with urban Hangzhou.

This time, the Hangzhou municipal government made a determination that in three years Fuyang residents will start to enjoy the same welfare, such as social insurance, education and housing, as Hangzhou urban residents.

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