Hangzhou's 40 Glorious Years-About the city

Hangzhou, known as the "earthly paradise", is the capital and the largest city in East China's Zhejiang province. Boasting a long history and a myriad of cultural and tourism resources, the city has made great strides in its social and international development since China's reform and opening up in 1978.

Let's take a look at the major achievements that Hangzhou has made during the past 40 years.

Raised International Profile

In recent years, Hangzhou has made great progress in promoting globalization. The city has successfully held a series of international meetings, such as the World Council Meeting of the United Cities and Local Governments and Metropolises, as well as ministerial conferences among BRICS countries.

As the host city of the 2016 G20 Summit, which put Hangzhou in the global spotlight and earned the city worldwide recognition, the Yangtze River metropolis is set to hold the next Asian Games in 2022, and become the third Chinese host of the continent's showpiece event after Beijing in 1990 and Guangzhou in 2010.

September 5 is designated as Hangzhou's International Day, a permanent annual event aimed to raise the city's international profile.

Booming Digital Industries

Home to China's e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, Hangzhou's digital economy has developed by leaps and bounds over the years.

At Alibaba's annual computing conference in September, Alibaba Group's cloud computing arm, Alibaba Cloud, launched the 2.0 version of the ET City Brain system, an upgraded version of a cutting-edge project which aims to improve city management by virtue of big data, artificial intelligence and cloud computing.

It is expected that by 2022, the "City Brain" system will become more efficient and comprehensive in expediting the city's urban management, especially in the fields of transportation, public securities and medical care, so as to provide digital support for the upcoming 2022 Asian Games.

According to official statistics, the digital economy was one of the major drivers for the city's economic performance in the first half of 2018, whose revenue hit 445.6 billion yuan ($64.08 billion), a surge of 22.8 percent over the same six months last year. The added value accounted for more than 25 percent of the city's GDP.

Talent Introduction

As Hangzhou is on the fast track of international development, the Yangtze River metropolis has also attached great importance to talent introduction by rolling out a wave of preferential policies to retain and attract high-caliber talents from both at home and abroad.

In the second quarter of 2018, Hangzhou has been listed as the top destination for new job recruits in the country with the net rate of job recruits flowing into the city at 9.88 percent, much higher than China's traditional first-tier cities Beijing and Shanghai.

On the expat front, the eastern Chinese city has proved itself a magnet for overseas professionals, with a total of 51 foreigners residing in Hangzhou having been granted permanent residence status in China, including scientists, leading researchers, entrepreneurs, managerial staff and their families.

The permanent residence policy, an effort to draw global talents, is a significant move for the Chinese government in its attempts to further reform and opening up.

To date, around 15,000 overseas professionals, 29,000 overseas Chinese and over 5,000 foreign-funded companies have settled in the city.