Business environment in Zhejiang

3. Regional Industrial Clusters

The regional industrial areas of Zhejiang, being the first and largest in China, bear the traits of "small commodities, large markets, low costs and high profits". They have maintained a vigorous momentum and have bright prospects of development.

The manufacturing industry with its industrial clusters is the main driving force of the economic "takeoff" in Zhejiang, which will have an even greater impact on the next round of development. According to the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020) of Zhejiang province, 15 industrial clusters will invest 200 billion yuan ($30.10 billion) in 23 key projects, accelerating a number of distinctive high-end industrial bases and platforms. Hangzhou Dajiangdong industrial park will invest 4 billion yuan to fund Chang’an ford phase II project which manufactures core components of cars; Hangzhou Bay New Zone will focus on the health industry and promote the construction of Pharmaron Life Science and Technology Industrial Park, gathering 8,000 talented researchers and becoming a biomedicine R&D and industrialization base for the province. The province aims to build one industrial cluster area worth hundreds of billions of yuan, two industrial cluster areas worth 80 billion yuan and five industrial cluster areas worth 50 billion yuan in 2020, forming a number of new generation information technology, intelligent manufacturing, energy saving and new energy vehicle industrial clusters.

Zhejiang has many specialized markets, which are of large scale, comprehensive strengths and broad spheres of radiation. The commodities cover all the basic categories of the means of living and production. By the end of 2016, the retail sales volume of the province's commodities reached 1,972.3 billion yuan, a growth rate of 10.8 percent. Thus, Zhejiang is referred to as "A Major Market Province": the three indexes, i.e., the total market sales volume, the number of markets with over a hundred million yuan and the sales volume of individual markets, rank the first in China for many consecutive years.

4. Coordinated Urban-rural Development

Zhejiang attaches importance not only to the leading role of cities but also to the countryside and farmers' dynamic functions in promoting coordinated urban-rural development. In every local place, the urban-rural dualistic structure has been disintegrated. Against the blueprint of "constructing a thousand model villages and renovating ten thousand villages" and with urbanization as a carrier, every locality makes overall plans, integrates resources, innovates structures and constructs supporting facilities. Accordingly the pattern of urban-rural integrated development wherein the city leads the countryside and industry pushes agriculture has been formed, which further enhances the urban functions of integration, radiation and promotion. The settlement of the "three issues on farmers, agriculture and countryside" is given top priority. The development of profitable agriculture will be continuously boosted, the construction of new countryside will be speeded up, the infrastructure in cities will extend to the countryside, the labor markets will expand to the countryside, and social security as well as public health care systems shall cover the countryside and urban-rural economy and social structures are gradually being integrated.

Zhejiang took the lead in pushing the reform on the ownership structure of township enterprises, the household registration system in small towns and the liberalization of the grain market. All these have made Zhejiang a pioneer in the nation in coordinated urban-rural development. The increase of farmers' incomes in Zhejiang has been the highest in the country for 32 consecutive years. Our province also took the lead in establishing the system for ensuring a minimum standard of living for both urban and rural residents. Our province decided to formally implement the new rural medical care cooperative system and medical aid system from August 2003. On the basis of a county, a unified planning for serious diseases has been carried out, with the focus on providing subsidies which cover large hospital and medical bills of the insured farmers.