The Progressing Year of 2018

On behalf of the People’s Government, Liu Xin, Acting Mayor of Changchun City, presented a work report at the 3rd Meeting of the 15th People’s Congress of Changchun City on January 14, 2019.

In 2018, Changchun deeply learned and implemented Xi Jinping’s Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era and the spirit of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, comprehensively promoted the overall planning of “Five in One”, coordinated and promoted the strategic planning of “Four Overalls”, comprehensively implemented the new development concept, and in accordance with the requirements of “Acting as a Pioneer and Becoming a Pilot”, emancipated minds, seized opportunities, faced difficulties and worked steadfastly, which, in turn, led to a better accomplishment of all tasks and objectives set for the year.

Promoting High-quality Development, Overall Quality of Economy Improved Steadily

The estimated GDP increased more than 7% and the aggregate moved up to RMB700 billion. The local fiscal revenue reached RMB47.8 billion, an increase of 6.2%. The added value of industries above the designated size increased more than 8%. More than 1,206 projects with a total investment of over RMB100 million were implemented, and the investment in fixed assets increased 7%. The total retail sales of consumer goods amounted to RMB302.8 billion, a surge of 7%.

All involved put active efforts into promoting the optimization and upgrading of the three pillar industries, namely, automobile, railway vehicle and agricultural processing. Eleven industrial projects invested with more than RMB1 billion each, including Audi Q Plant and COFCO Polylactic Acid, went operational. The cultivation of six strategic, emerging industries, namely, advanced equipment manufacturing, photoelectric information, biological and pharmaceutical health, new energy vehicle, new material and big data, were accelerated. The output value of strategic, emerging industries increased 15.9%. The construction of Digital Changchun was kick-started to actively cultivate sharing economy, digital economy and platform economy, and promote the deep integration of Internet, big data, artificial intelligence and manufacturing industry. The key projects including Huawei Cloud Computing and Inspur Big Data moved forward as smoothly as expected.

The trade volume of convention and exhibition industry went up 11%. The number of visitors to Changchun City increased 15% to 89 million throughout the year. Five foreign financial institutions settled in Changchun. The strategic plan for rural revitalization was promulgated and implemented.

Deepening Reform and Opening up, Motion of Energy of Revitalizing Development Released Continuously

The reform of “Delegating Power, Streamlining Administration and Optimizing Government Services” was deepened. The start-up time of an enterprise was reduced to three working days, the approval time of an industrial project to 15 working days, and “No More Than One Time for Transaction” was made possible for handling 97% of administrative approval and public service items. Changchun improved and implemented the measures to support private economy which benefited the registration of 36,000 new private enterprises throughout the year, increasing the number to 197,000 in total. The proportion of private economy in the GDP went up to 51%. The number of new hi-tech and “Little Giant” enterprises reached 315 and 283 respectively. The volume of technology contract transactions was RMB32.35 billion, up 52%. Seventy-eight thousand college graduates chose to start business or work in Changchun after graduation, an increase of 23.8%. The total import and export volume increased 10.4%. Fourteen new central enterprises and 14 Top 500 domestic enterprises were introduced to Changchun. The actual utilization of domestic funds and direct utilization of foreign funds increased 16% and 9%, respectively. The spatial distribution for the integration of Changchun and Jilin, and the urbanization of Gongzhuling and Changchun was implemented steadily. The construction of Harbin-Changchun City Cluster and the counterpart cooperation with Tianjin and Hangzhou were promoted continuously.

Optimizing Functional Quality, Urban Modernization Construction Level Improved in an All-round Way

The three national pilot projects of urban design, urban overall planning and “All-in-one” spatial planning made achievements in different phases. The old city proper renovation and upgrading projects were completed successfully, bringing about a brand new look for an area of 166 square kilometers within the 3rd Ring Road. The construction of “Five Islands and Ten Gardens”, 22 stations and 33 square kilometers of green space in the middle section of Yitong River were completed and opened to the public. The Water Culture and Ecology Park, Daotai Yamen Museum and Olympic Park were put into use. The number of newly built streets, and green lands amounted to 58 and 58 respectively. The area of afforestation reached 4,972 hectares. The Subway Line 2 and Light Rail Beihu Line went operational, and the third-phase rail transit planning was formally approved. The T2 of Longjia International Airport, the Northern Part of the First Phase of the Integrated Transport Hub and the South Square of Changchun Railway Station’s Integrated Transport Transfer Center were put into use. The campaign Tour around Changchun was carried out deeply and the level of good management of the city was improved steadily.

Accelerating Green Development, Quality of Ecological Surroundings Improved Continuously

All departments involved in Changchun City resolutely implemented Xi Jinping’s Thought on Ecological Civilization, comprehensively promoted the rectification of issues as required by the authorities at central government and local provincial government levels for the strict adherence of the three red lines of ecological environment, arable land protection and urban development border to strive to build a long-term mechanism of ecological and environmental protection. In addition, Changchun deeply implemented the river (lake) long-term treatment mechanism, with 9 sewage treatment plants upgraded and renovated; all large-scale farms within the forbidden region were closed for relocation. The water quality of Yitong River and Yinma River was improved. Seventy-five black and smelly water bodies in the built areas were basically treated. Changchun was awarded “Demonstration City for Treatment of Urban Black and Smelly Water in 2018”. The Shikoumen and Xinlicheng Reservoirs, the two primary water source protection zones, realized fully closed management. The National Pilot City for Water Ecology Civilization” of Changchun City went through the procedure of national examination and acceptance.

Making Substantial Achievements in Improvement of People’s Wellbeing, Index of Happiness of the Public Increased Day by Day

Efforts were made to invest more in people’s wellbeing and all the 98 programs for the Happy Changchun Action Plan were fulfilled. Fifteen industry-based poverty alleviation projects were launched, 101 safe drinking water projects were built in rural areas, 2,934 family houses under poor conditions were transformed, and all poor villages were basically covered with fiber and 4G networks. Fifteen far-flung villages and 1,535 poor families were lifted out of poverty. There were 114,000 new jobs in cities and towns. The basic pensions of urban workers and urban-rural residents increased 6% and 18%, the unemployment insurance increased 20.5%, and the standard of industrial injury treatment increased 5%. The proportion of basic medical in-patient assistance for the insured was improved to a higher level. In shanty towns, 102,000 houses were renovated, 2,202 families got resettled, and 129,000 families completed registration of houses totaling 11.37 million square meters without property certificates. The long-term management mechanism for 115 old residential quarters was established. Twenty villages were awarded “Beautiful Villages” at provincial level. The “Bud Plan”, a kind of free after-school care for primary school students, was popularized by the Central Reform Office to other places of the country.

Innovating Social Governance, Social Harmony and Stability Maintained

All departments involved in Changchun City consciously accepted the legal supervision of the Changchun Municipal People's Congress and its Standing Committee, and the democratic supervision of the Changchun Municipal People’s Political Consultative Conference, the voluntary supervision of the society and the public, and listened with care to the opinions and suggestions of democratic parties, federations of industry and commerce and non-party personnel. The working level of the Directors’ Reception Day and the Mayor’s Hotline was improved. The “Government Affairs on TV” was carried out actively, and the transformation and upgrading of old city proper, rural water conservancy, river (lake) long-term management mechanism, and the establishment of civilized cities were highlighted. And 138 pieces of issues related to people’s wellbeing were handled. The special struggles to eradicate gangsters and evils were launched substantially, making Changchun rank 16th among the 358 cities at prefecture level or above in the country in terms of the sense of security of the people. The “Project Bright Snow”, a video surveillance network for public security, was completed as scheduled. The special rectification of production safety was implemented in depth, and the number of accidents and casualties declined for 66 consecutive months.

The Rising Year of 2019

According to Liu Xin, the overall mentality for the 2019 government work of Changchun City is to hold high the great banner of Xi Jinping’s Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, comprehensively implement the spirit of the 19th National Congress of the CPC, and the spirit of the important speeches and instructions made by General Secretary Xi Jinping at the Symposium on Promoting the Revitalization of Northeast China, and in accordance with the arrangements unveiled at the Economic Work Conference at central government and province levels and the 6th Plenary Session of the 13th CPC Changchun Municipal Committee, to promote in a coordinated way the “Five in One” Overall Layout, the “Four Overalls” Strategic Planning, adhere to steady progress, new development concept and promotion of high-quality development, and meanwhile continue to take the supply-side structural reform as the main line to deepen market-oriented reform, expand high-level opening up, and make every effort to ensure the success in the “Three Key Battles” while firmly implementing the requirements of “Six Stabilities”. In addition, the steady growth, reform, restructuring, benefiting people’s wellbeing and risk prevention will be promoted in a coordinated way, and the awareness of “Acting as a Pioneer and Becoming a Pilot” will be reinforced constantly. The “Three Fives” development strategy of the CPC Jilin Provincial Committee will be implemented with care and the construction of a central city in the region of Northeast Asia will be accelerated so as to lay a solid foundation for the comprehensive revitalization from an all-round way of Changchun City, and thus welcome with outstanding achievements the 70th anniversary for the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

The main anticipated objectives for the economic development of Changchun City are as follows: growth rate of regional GDP to maintain at 7% or above, the value added of industries above designated size to grow 8% or above, the investment in fixed assets to increase 8% or above, the local fiscal revenue to increase at 5% to exceed RMB50 billion, and the income of urban and rural residents basically to keep pace with the growth of local economy.

Adhere to Steady Progress, Promote Steady and Healthy Economic Growth

Changchun will take active measures to apply for the establishment of free trade zones and the demonstration zones for international cooperation between China and ROK as an effort to create role models for national independent innovation, implement in depth the “Year of Project Construction” to have more than 1,200 projects to be invested with RMB100 million each started throughout the year. All departments involved will focus on 100 industrial projects invested with RMB1 billion including upgrading and transformation of Brand HQ (Red Flag) and capacity expanding of FAW’s Feng Yue to ensure all these projects can be completed, go operational and thus achieve economic results as early as expected. The introduction of Global 500, central enterprises, listed private companies, Unicorn enterprises and hi-tech enterprises to Changchun City will be prioritized to promote the steady improvement of the scale, structure, quality and efficiency of investment attraction. The actual utilization of domestic funds and direct utilization of foreign funds is expected to increase more than 10% for the whole year, and the proportion of industrial projects to increase significantly. An all-round enterprise service system will be established, and the cultivation of “Top 100 Private Enterprises” and “Specialized, Exquisite, Unique and New” small and medium-sized enterprises will be implemented. The construction of demonstration city for the deepening of reform of private economic development will be pushed forward, more than 20,000 new private enterprises will be registered and the main business income of private economy is expected to increase 8.5% or above.

Highlighting Quality Benefit, Making Real Economy Bigger, Stronger and Better

The high-quality industrial development will be accelerated, and priority will be given to build an industrial cluster of automobile, railway vehicle and agricultural processing. The output value of the six strategic, emerging industries is expected to increase at least 15%. All departments involved will deepen the pilot project of comprehensive reform of the national service industry set for the 13th Five-Year Plan, push forward “Internet plus medical care, old age care, education, culture, sport and tourism” and other life-oriented services, and vigorously develop such productive services as industrial chain finance, modern logistics, industrial design, R&D incubation, and industrial real estate. In addition, great efforts will be put into developing such cultural and creative industries as internet literature, film and television production and broadcasting, press and publishing, live broadcasting, animation games, and electronic sport, and the added value of cultural and creative industries will increase at least 10%, and high-quality modern service industry clusters including New City Proper in South Changchun, Changchun West Railway Station and North Renmin Street will be created.

The leading and guiding role of flagship enterprises will be highlighted. The development and opening up of FAW Group will be taken as a platform to promote the all-round development and cooperation between FAW with Global 500, central enterprises, private enterprises, universities and scientific research institutes, and the deep integration of automotive industry and the strategic, emerging industries. Changchun will vigorously develop after-market services for automobiles, build an industrial system for car sales, repair, modification, decoration, racing, used cars and remanufacturing, and thus comprehensively enhance the influence of the “City of Automobile” through customer groups, professional clubs and international automobile competitions. Taking such leading enterprises as Eurasia, Changchun Railway Vehicles, Haoyue, Yatai and Oriental Electronics as value platforms, all departments involved will deeply integrate the service system of key factors covering finance, information, science and technology and talents to extend the industry chain to both the upstream and the downstream, and expand the proportion of relevant production-oriented services. The driving force of scientific and technological innovations will be strengthened, and the construction of a national innovative city and a core area of innovation and transformation in the central part of Jilin Province will be pushed forward. The “Double 10 Projects” for tackling critical scientific and technological bottlenecks and transforming major scientific and technological findings will be implemented in a rotated way. More than 200 new high-tech enterprises at national level and 200 plus “Little Giant” enterprises will be created respectively.

The practicability and effectiveness of the collaborative innovation platform for “Government, Industry, University and Research” will be improved, the functions of large science and technology markets and science and finance innovation centers will be optimized, and the volume of technical contracts will be increased at least 20%. In addition, efforts will be put into building a national-level “innovation and entrepreneurship” demonstration base and five new innovation and entrepreneurship bases at provincial level or above, and increasing the number of enterprises under incubation to 165,000. The North Branch of the National IPR Public Service Platform of in Changchun New Area will be put into operation. The “entrepreneurship and employment for college graduates in Changchun City” will be continued so as to make the number of such settlers exceed 80,000 people, an increase of more than 5%.

Deepening Reform and Opening-up, Triggering Vitality of Economic and Social Development

The reform practice of “no need for face-to-face examination and approval, no need to ask for help for going through transaction procedures” will be deepened, and the time spent on examination and approval of industrial and commercial registration of a newly established enterprise will be reduced to less than 30 minutes, and that for a general industrial project to less than 5 working days. All involved will further optimize the environments of market, rule of law, business, policy and society so that the entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial personnel can enjoy both financial and prestigious benefits. The achievements of “Three Eliminations, One Reduction and One Subsidy” will be consolidated, the reform of state-owned assets and enterprises will be promoted deeply, the reform of government departments at city level will be completed, and the reforms in the fields of culture, education, medical care, old-age service, safe production and food security will be pushed forward. In the meantime, the level of opening up to the outside world will be improved and the total import and export volume will be increased by 6% or above in the whole year.

Adhering to Problem-oriented Concept to Secure Success in the” Three Critical Battles”, namely, preventing and handling disastrous risks, accurate poverty relief for which 142 programs and 29 safe drinking water projects in rural areas will be implemented, seven villages and 1,538 poor families will be lifted out of poverty, and pollution prevention and treatment for which the concept “Clean Rivers and Green Mountains Equal to Treasures of Gold and Silver” will be firmly upheld to protect sky, rivers, black soil, green mountains and wetlands so as make the sky bluer, all mountains greener and all rivers clearer. 　　

Prioritizing Scientific Overall Planning to Promote Regional Coordinated Development

All departments involved will work as one to promote the competition-based development of different plates of the city. The New Area and development zones will firmly adhere to secure footholds through projects, revitalize through industries and get strong through science and technology. The investment intensity, the contribution rate of sciences and technologies and the production rate of all key factors will be improved to strive for first-class role models in deepening reform and opening up, optimizing business environment, gathering emerging industries, stimulating innovation and entrepreneurship. All districts will fully rely on cultural backgrounds, school resources, industrial foundations and ecological characteristics to vigorously develop characteristic blocks, innovation and entrepreneurship bases and modern services, and constantly improve the level of industries, livable residence and ecology. With the strategy of Rural Revitalization as the main focus, the counties shall increase investment attraction, and seek breakthroughs in the construction of industrial parks, leading industries, projects to make people get rich, characteristic economy and ecological functional areas. In the meantime, efforts will be put into promoting regional development in a coordinated way, giving full play to the function of the city to influence and drive the development of its surrounding areas, implementing the “Three Major Plates" strategy and the “One Major, Six Doubles” industrial spatial layout, actively carrying out counterpart cooperation, accelerating the construction of such co-construction parks as Tianjin-Changchun Industrial Co-operation Park and Jilin-Zhejiang Industrial Park, and striving to usher in more than 20 large enterprises.

Promoting the Vitalization of Rural Areas and Improving the Work Level of “Agriculture, Countryside and Farmers”

For the year of 2019, high-quality characteristic green agriculture, and high-quality and efficient agriculture featuring “Fungi, Herbs, Flowers, Melons and Fruits”, will be developed, more brands of characteristic agricultural products will created, the area of cash crops will be increased to 1.6 million mu. In addition, priority will be given to the In-depth establishment of “National Green Organic Agricultural Demonstration City” for which 20 new green organic demonstration parks will be built, and 950,000 mu of green organic area be added, 40 antibiotics-free breeding bases will be constructed, at least five small townships with distinctive industrial characteristics, rich humanistic atmospheres and beautiful ecological surroundings will be explored and cultivated, and 15 high standard and livable demonstration villages will be created.

Highlighting Culture-based Guidance for the Construction of a Livable and Industrial City

“A blueprint” shaping the city’s characteristics will be highlighted, the national pilot projects of urban design, overall planning and “All-in-one” spatial planning will be implemented in depth, and a new round of overall planning for the city will be compiled at a high level. The “Dual-core Drive” to upgrade the pole of energy of the city will be continued. All departments involved will comprehensively promote the development and construction of such key areas as Changchun New Area, New City Proper in South Changchun and Changchun West Railway Station. In addition, efforts will be made to protect and renovate historic buildings, renovate and upgrade the Green Smart Town of HQ, the Pedestrian Street of Changchun Film Studio, the Old Site of Changchun Tractors Factory and other culturally characteristic blocks, and improve the level of treatment and management. The construction of a system integrating satellites, UAVs, videos, law-enforcement patrols and public reports for the supervision of the city, the environment and the natural resources will be strengthened for special renovations in such fields as road traffic, construction sites, illegal buildings, market order, urban environment and plaque advertisements as an effort to make the city cleaner, more orderly, brighter and more civilized.

Putting People First and Better Guaranteeing and Improving People’s Wellbeing

All involved will implement the Happy Changchun Action Plan and have 100 people’s wellbeing projects implemented as satisfactorily as expected. The “Warm Current Plan” will be implemented to promote the sustainable and stable growth of incomes for both the urban and the rural residents. In addition, focus will be put on expanding employment, making 90,000 extra people get employed in cities and towns and 1 million people in rural areas transferred as surplus labors for employment. The social assistance system will be optimized to ensure the basic livelihood of people living under poor conditions in urban-rural areas. In addition, the authorizes will have the houses totaling more than 8.5 million square registered with property ownership certificates, the houses of 5,300 families in shanty towns renovated and 3,000 families resettled. In the meantime, priority shall be given to the development of education for which four new schools for nine-year compulsory education and 15 new inclusive kindergartens shall be built. The construction of Healthy Changchun will be pushed forward, the reform of health care for the benefits of the people will be implemented, the types of chronic diseases for outpatient treatments and low self-payment medical insurance will be increased, and graded diagnosis and treatment, cross-provincial and off-site medical settlement will be pushed forward. In the meantime, all departments involved will further implement the strategy of “Revitalizing the City through Culture” to constantly improve the level of equalization of public cultural services. The modernization of social governance at grass-roots level will be pushed forward vigorously, the “National Demonstration City for Security” and the “National Demonstration City for Food Security” will be created, the comprehensive management of social security will be strengthened, the special struggles against crimes and evils will be reinforced at deeper levels, and the roles of Directors’ Reception Day and the Mayor’s Hotline will be brought into full play to effectively meet the reasonable demands of the masses in accordance with the law.