No. [2006] 20 of the State Council

Promoting the development and opening-up of the Tianjin Binhai New Area (the TBNA) is an important strategic arrangement made by the Central Committee of the CPC and the State Council, based on the overall situation of China’s economic and social development at the new stage of the new century. In order to better advance the development and opening-up of the TBNA, hereby the following suggestions about the related issues are made.

I. The Great Significance of the Development and Opening-up of the TBNA

With a planning area of 2,270 km2, the TBNA comprises such three administrative districts as Tanggu District, Hangu District and Dagang District and such three function zones as Tianjin Economic-Technological Development Area, Tianjin Port Free Trade Zone and Tianjin Port as well as parts of Dongli District and Jinnan District. After over a decade of development and construction, the TBNA has equipped itself with conditions and foundations for further accelerated development.

Promoting the development and opening-up of the TBNA will be beneficial for strengthening the international competitiveness of Beijing- Tianjin-Hebei region as well as the circum-Bohai region. Located in the center of the circum-Bohai region, the TBNA is the gateway to China’s vast hinterland and boasts outstanding geographic advantages, profound industrial foundation, and great potential for growth. The TBNA is an important window for China’s participation in economic globalization and regional economic integration. Promoting the development and opening-up of the TBNA and expediting her development may effectively raise the level of opening-up of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and the circum-Bohai region and help her to better integrate herself into international economy, display her potential capacities, and enhance her competitiveness.

Promoting the development and opening-up of the TBNA will be favorable for implementing the overall strategy of coordinated development among regions nationwide. After more than a decade of development, the TBNA has kept strengthening her comprehensive strength and further improved her service functions, becoming another new engine for regional economic growth after Shenzhen Special Economic Zone and Pudong New Area. The development and opening-up of the TBNA will be helpful for China’s eastern regions to take the lead in attaining modernization so as to give impetus to the development of central and western regions, the three northern regions (China’s northeast, central north and northwest) in particular, forming a coordinated regional development pattern in which the eastern, central and western regions can better interact, complement and support each other, and develop together.

Promoting the development and opening-up of the TBNA will be good for exploring new regional development patterns at the new stage. Under the new situations that economic globalization and regional economic integration is speeding up and China is building a well-off society in an all-around way and constructing a harmonious socialist society, to grasp the features of changes in international and domestic situations and adopt new ideas and development patterns to promote the development and opening-up of the TBNA will be conductive to fully implementing the scientific outlook of development, realizing harmonious coexistence between man and nature, and blazing a new trail for innovative regional development.