Chongqing to become international transportation hub

According to its latest territorial spatial plan, Chongqing, a mega city in Southwest China with over 34 million people, will become a global transportation hub and a gateway to the country's western regions by 2035.

On Feb 21, the State Council approved Chongqing's territorial spatial plan (2021-35), which is a guideline for the municipality's spatial development and a sustainable development blueprint.

As one of the four municipalities under the direct management of the central government after Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin, Chongqing should build itself into a national advanced manufacturing base, a center of scientific innovation in western China and a hub of river transportation along the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, the plan says.

By 2035, the total amount of cultivated land in Chongqing will reach 1.77 million hectares, of which 1.37 million hectares will be protected as permanent basic farmland.

Meanwhile, the plan stressed that the red line for ecological protection shall not be less than 19,200 square kilometers.

It is planned that by 2035, the city's urbanization rate will be about 80 percent.

To transform Chongqing into a global transportation hub, the city will develop 10 comprehensive logistics channels to connect the major domestic city clusters and neighboring countries by optimizing current projects, such as the International Land-Sea Trade Corridor and China Europe Railway Express.

Chongqing also plans to build a 2,000-kilometer high-speed rail network, so that the passengers can arrive in Chengdu and Guiyang, the capitals of neighboring Sichuan and Guizhou provinces, in just one hour and reach Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou in six hours.

The expansion of Chongqing Jiangbei International Airport and the construction of the second airport in Chongqing is also in the pipeline.