2018年CRI 中国地区战略显示新的发展哲学（在线收听）

Many Chinese cities or areas went down in history as the country's flagship reform and opening up efforts, and they represented the different development phases of China. Shenzhen was the beginning of the country's trade-driven growth phase. Shanghai's Pudong financial district symbolized the investment-driven phase. And now, China's new initiative, the Xiong'An New Area in Hebei, is part of the country's next phase.

Yvonne Zhou, Partner and Managing Director of Boston Consulting Group says: "Versus right now, Xiong'an is representing a new age. This is when we are switching to innovation driven development phase."

At its one year anniversary this April, the zone already attracted and registered more than 100 high-tech companies. China's top three tech powerhouses — Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent — have all launched projects there. However, much infrastructure is still needed to accommodate companies and talents. The New Development Bank, formed by BRICS nations, is in talks with the local government to join in on the building of Xiong'An.

Xian Zhu is vice president of the bank.

"For the first round of infrastructure in Xiong'an, we can provide quick financing, at the same time we also focus on the new way of doing business, making infrastructure that is not really physically what we see in other cities, but making it more innovative, make it more digitalized, make it more green and sustainable."

For the past few years, the Chinese government has been active in promoting regional strategies. Apart from Xiong'An, there is also the Greater Bay Area of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao.

Yvonne Zhou adds:

"On the coordinated regional efforts. Before, China was like, many different companies were in free market competing against each other, so that's great for the GDP growth, free competition. But now we are talking about more coordination, more differentiated positioning of the city so the whole cluster actually could become a much more powerful base than one individual city."

Experts say these ambitious regional strategies represent the development philosophy of today's China. A recognition that further openness and innovation is the way to succeed in the 21st century.