Tianjin's Binhai keeps development momentum in H1

Tianjin's Binhai New Area is confident that it can maintain high-quality development while making efforts to kick-start the economy and contain the epidemic, according to a news conference held by local government on Tuesday.

Binhai's economy has shown signs of recovery, with the decline in regional gross domestic product (GDP) in the first half of this year narrowing by 5.7 percentage points compared with the first quarter.

The regional fixed asset investment eked out a gain of 4.8 percent year-on-year. The total value of imports and exports registered a year-on-year growth of 1.6 percent in H1. In addition, the total retail sales of consumer goods maintained positive growth for four consecutive months, according to Yang Maorong, deputy head of the area.

Beginning on February 6, the local government of Binhai started making plans for advancing the orderly resumption of work and production. With the resulting services and policies in place, 99.7 percent of the area’s major companies returned to work.

By accelerating the resumption of work and production, the economic structure continues to be optimized during the epidemic, with the service industry surpassing the secondary industry to become the largest, Yang said.

Major development zones such as the Economic and Tech Development Area and the Hi-tech Area in Binhai have contributed to the area by rolling out new policies to facilitate attracting investment and new projects.

Over 2,000 hi-tech companies and institutions were introduced as part of the area's efforts to cultivate new economic drivers.

Projects introduced to the new area have not been hampered by the epidemic thanks to a cloud investment promotion model. In the first half of this year, 3,445 domestic and foreign projects, with investment totaling 309.2 billion yuan, were launched, a remarkable increase of 52 percent and 62 percent year-on-year respectively. One third of the investment comes from undertaking the non-core capital functions of Beijing.

The actual amount of domestic and foreign capital utilized in Binhai from January to June increased 15.2 percent and 4.2 percent respectively.