The municipal government work report delivered this year has outlined concrete steps for accelerating the construction of a modern industrial city with strong momentum and distinctive advantages. How can we better leverage the five leading industries as a guide to drive intelligent, green, and integrated industrial development? Deputies and committee members attending the municipal Two Sessions have stated that we must stick to industry as the foundation and projects as the priority, sprinting ahead on the track of high-quality development and carving out new horizons.
Clustering into industrial chains to forge new strengths
In the first half of this year, the biomedical industry in the Shijiazhuang High-tech Zone delivered an impressive report card: revenue for large-scale biomedical enterprises grew by 47.9%; Yiling Pharmaceutical and CSPC Pharmaceutical Group each had one Class 2 new drug approved for market; CSPC Pharmaceutical Group has received USD 1.225 billion in upfront and milestone payments from AstraZeneca for their partnership... This signals that the high-quality development framework for the biomedical industry in the high-tech zone is rapidly taking shape, said Gao Jian, a municipal committee member and dean of the Biomedical Industry Research Institute of the Shijiazhuang High-tech Zone.
How to boost the scale, strength, and comprehensive competitiveness of leading industries is also a key focus for many deputies and committee members. Wang Youjian, a committee member from the Sixth Design Institute of Mechanical Industry, suggested accelerating the construction of the Yanzhao Electronic Information Laboratory to build an innovation highland for electronic information in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. He proposed that the laboratory should anchor on the main industrial direction of Hebei Province and Shijiazhuang City, focusing on seven key segments including semiconductors and integrated circuits, modern communications, and space information and satellite applications, effectively attracting cutting-edge technologies, high-quality projects, and top talent from Beijing and Tianjin to land in Shijiazhuang.
Xu Shengyin, a municipal people's congress deputy and Party secretary of Zhao County, stated that the county will strengthen cost leadership in parks and empower them through technological innovation, creating more individual champions and hidden champions for pharmaceutical intermediates and APIs such as Penicillin V Potassium, while extending downstream industry chain maps for targeted investment, focusing on high-end formulations, tonic medicines, and drug-device integration as emerging industries, so that Zhao County's biomedical sector carries weight at the municipal and provincial levels and gains national influence.
As the country's largest railway freight wagon manufacturing and repair base, the century-old enterprise CRRC Shijiazhuang Co., Ltd. will continue to intensify efforts in integrating artificial intelligence technology with equipment, enabling traditional manufacturing to board the AI-era train. We will accelerate the completion of a nationally leading intelligent laboratory, collaborate with well-known provincial and municipal research institutions on joint technological breakthroughs, and produce a batch of deployable, applicable, and replicable digital and intelligent technologies and intellectual property, said Zhang Jianwu, municipal people's congress deputy and Party secretary and chairman of CRRC Shijiazhuang Co., Ltd.
Tackling key projects to solidify development support
In Chenzhuang Town and Zhaitou Township of Lingshou County, the billion-yuan clean energy project — the Lingshou Pumped Storage Power Station — is pushing forward with construction of main works including the upper and lower reservoirs and the water conveyance and power generation systems. The first unit is expected to be connected to the grid by the end of 2028, with all units operational by the end of 2029. We will leverage the project working group's role in overall coordination, keeping a close eye on key milestones, strictly controlling the construction timeline, strengthening factor guarantees, delivering precise and proactive services, and promptly resolving construction challenges, said Jin Jun, municipal people's congress deputy and Party secretary of Lingshou County.
Strong and continuous project advancement cannot be achieved without solid efforts in opening up, investment attraction, and park development. Han Jie, municipal committee member and Party secretary and chairman of Shijiazhuang State-owned Capital Operation Group, stated that the group will adhere to the principle of investing out and bringing in, continuously connecting with high-quality projects both domestically and internationally; meanwhile, setting up a City Reception Hall and an investment fund to precisely capture hard-tech future industry projects such as bit quantum computing and medical brain-computer interfaces for landing in Shijiazhuang.
As one of the two wings of the city's high-quality development, the Shijiazhuang Economic Development Zone, while accelerating the construction and early operation of 33 key projects with a total investment of RMB 3.731 billion, is focusing on building low-cost parks with strong supporting service capabilities. We will accelerate the construction of supporting facilities such as the energy island, providing robust support for efficient enterprise operations through comprehensive factor guarantees, said Liang Lijie, municipal committee member and deputy Party secretary of the Shijiazhuang Economic Development Zone Party Working Committee. The zone will continue to promote intelligent upgrades of approval software, achieving a 100% online processing rate for the entire process, continuously improving the park's comprehensive supporting and service capabilities.
Optimizing the environment to polish the golden business card for enterprises
A favorable business environment is a strong magnet for industrial agglomeration. Shi Jianhui, municipal people's congress deputy and Party secretary of Shijiazhuang No.4 Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., found during research that building a digital talent team that matches industrial development is an urgent priority. He suggested deepening industry-education integration to cultivate a compound talent system of AI plus pharmaceuticals; innovating talent introduction and employment mechanisms, with a focus on bringing in compound leading talents who understand both AI technology and the logic of the biomedical industry; strengthening skill enhancement for on-the-job personnel; consolidating the foundation for AI applications; and solidifying the data and platform foundation to create integrated application scenarios for AI plus pharmaceuticals, using scenarios to drive the release of talent value.
How can we make young people willing to come, stay, and thrive? Wang Xiaoran, municipal people's congress deputy and Party secretary of the Communist Youth League Shijiazhuang Committee, has been pondering this question. Building a youth-development-friendly city is about retaining people and, most importantly, winning hearts. Wang Xiaoran believes we should care about and support young people in achieving their dreams, understanding youth, nurturing youth, and benefiting youth, so that their voices are heard, their growth is visible, and their security is tangible.
Optimizing the business environment requires institutional innovation. In recent years, the city has deeply carried out special actions to deepen and upgrade state-owned enterprise reforms, consolidating 77 municipal SOEs into a 5+2 SOE framework, with total assets increasing by 83.8% compared to before the restructuring, forming a high-credit entity matrix of 5 AAA and 7 AA+ ratings. Su Junxian, municipal committee member and Party secretary and director of the Municipal State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, stated that the commission will further deepen SOE reforms, accelerate the creation of modern new SOEs that are innovation-leading, functionally prominent, efficiently governed, and full of vitality, and comprehensively build a strong brand for Shijiazhuang's state-owned assets and enterprises.