Written by Gao Hang and Li Min / Translated by Zhang Haiyan

Located in the southwest of China, Fangchenggang, a coastal and border city surrounded by mountains, is showing new and strong vitality in the new era.

As the only city in China linking ASEAN countries via both land and sea, and the southern starting point of China’s coastline, Fangchenggang enjoys the advantages and resources of ocean, border and mountains. Chinese President Xi Jinping has urged Guangxi to build itself into an international passage to ASEAN, a new strategic pivot for the opening-up and development of southwest and central China, and a crucial gateway connecting the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21stCentury Maritime Silk Road (hereinafter referred to as “Three Roles”). Based on its prominent advantages in and high accordance with the requirement of Guangxi’s “Three Roles”,Fangchenggang has defined clear development philosophies and ways to make greater use of its advantages and resources.

The overall plan and key approaches shall be devised for development. How will Fangchenggang further promote opening-up in its development? And how can it better capitalize on its advantages and resources of ocean, border and mountains? With these questions in mind,China-ASEAN Panoramahad an exclusive interview with Li Yanqiang,Secretary of Fangchenggang Municipal Party Committee.

Fangchenggang: A key link for Guangxi’s “Three Roles” and the Southern Transport Corridor

“In 2015, General Secretary Xi Jinping proposed the ‘Three Roles’ of Guangxi, and put forward the new requirements of ‘solid work in five aspects’ during his inspection tour in Guangxi in April 2017, which brought us historic opportunities to boost opening-up and international cooperation and drive high-quality economic and social development,” said Li Yanqiang. He believed that in the face of new opportunities, Fangchenggang should carry out more open cooperation with ASEAN based on the existing platforms for opening-up, actively participate in the construction of the Southern Transport Corridor, and seek deeper integration into the Beibu Gulf city cluster and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, so as to build itself into a key link for Guangxi’s “Three Roles” and the Southern Transport Corridor.

The geographical advantage of a coastal and border city surrounded by mountains should serve as the basis for Fangchenggang to perform its role.

“As a port city, Fangchenggang boasts significant advantages in the maritime sector, said Li Yanqiang, “Fangchenggang is the largest deep-water port in southwest China with a coastline of 580 kilometers. Currently, Fangchenggang port has berths capable of receiving ships up to 200,000 deadweight tons (dwt). This year marks the 50thanniversary of the establishment of Fangchenggang port. During the past 50 years, Fangchenggang has experienced tremendous development from a small strategic port to one of China’s 12 major hub ports with a cargo handling capacity of over 100 million tonnes.”

According to Li Yanqiang, Fangchenggang has planned a 90-kilometer coastline for production use, including a deepwater coastline of more than 70 kilometers, and about 16 kilometers of the total has been developed and put into use.Therefore, Fangchenggang sees huge potential for its future development. “Among all Chinese cities along the China-Singapore Connectivity Initiative — Southern Transport Corridor, Fangchenggang is the only one that has both land and sea channels. Besides, Fangchenggang has a sound foundation for container and bulk cargo transport, which are conducive to the development of maritime industry and economy,” he said. “Marine resources represent an important advantage in Fangchenggang’s participation in the construction of the Southern Transport Corridor and connection to the Belt and Road. Fangchenggang was founded based on the port in the past, and in the future, we will work to see it develop and become stronger and richer through port.”

Apart from the long coastline, Fangchenggang has borderlines of up to 230 kilometers. Dongxing in Fangchenggang is just across a river from Vietnam’s Mong Cai. With the increasingly closer cooperation between China and ASEAN,border turns out to be another advantage for the development of Fangchenggang. “Both Dongxing Port and Dongzhong Port (including Lihuo Corridor) are national fi rst-class ports,and Dongxing Port has been the largest land port in China.In the future, we will connect each port by strengthening infrastructure construction, and put into operation a second bridge across Beilun River to see a rise in the number of people and goods passing through Dongxing Port and improvement in exit and entry procedure efficiency. In this way, Fangchenggang may truly become a key link of the international passage to ASEAN,” said Li Yanqiang.

As the understanding of “l(fā)ucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets” is embraced by the people, Fangchenggang also has vast potential for tourism development with its Shiwan Mountain scenery. “To develop the tourism resources of the Shiwan Mountain should be a priority of border tourism development in Fangchenggang,” said Li Yanqiang. The approval of border tourism pilot zone will undoubtedly help Fangchenggang write a new chapter in tourism and opening-up.

Border tourism pilot zone injecting new energy to tourism

In March 2018, China’s State Council approved two border tourism pilot zones, and Fangchenggang is one of them.Fangchenggang stands out from multiple candidate cities due to its abundant tourism resources, strong strength with the largest number of annual exits and entries of any port on the China-Vietnam border, as well as convenient access to Nanning, other parts of China and Vietnam.

“The approval of border tourism pilot zone is a gift and new mission given by the Central Government, which will present new opportunities for the development of Fangchenggang’s tourism industry. Fangchenggang Municipal Party Committee and Government have put tourism development high on their agenda. Through border and cross-border tourism, our open cooperation with ASEAN countries will be more vigorous;and new drivers will be injected into our maritime economy through developing maritime tourism such as cruise tourism.Moreover, Fangchenggang can enhance its popularity through tourism, attracting more tourists, thus to boost its economic and social development and revitalize border areas and enrich the people living there,” said Li Yanqiang.

According to Li Yanqiang, in order to build the boarder tourism pilot zone, Fangchenggang Municipal Party Committee deliberated and passed theDecision on Accelerating the Construction of Fangchenggang Border Tourism Pilot Zone, which clarifies specific work in five aspects and exploration tasks in seven aspects, and focuses on strengthening planning and guidance, perfecting tourism infrastructure, creating high-quality tourism products, and exploring border tourism models.

“We will accelerate the establishment of a border tourism development model for that covers all regions, total factor and entire industrial chain. We will also create a new tourism development pattern integrating maritime, border and mountainous tourism, thus providing a useful reference and playing an exemplary role for other regions to develop border tourism,” said Li Yanqiang. “We are striving to achieve the following goals by 2020: further perfecting tourism infrastructures and public service facilities in the pilot zone;basically putting in place highly open and vigorous tourism management system and mechanism; comprehensively improving overall quality of tourism; ensuring all-forone tourism framework in place; making substantial breakthrough in integrated development of tourism industry and open cooperation of border tourism. With these efforts,we will build Fangchenggang Border Tourism Pilot Zone into a destination of China-Vietnam cross-border tourism,practice zone for integrated development of China-Vietnam tourism industry, and pilot zone of China-ASEAN tourism cooperation and coastal ecological tourism city in Beibu Gulf.”

Door always open to ASEAN

The year 2018 marks the 40thanniversary of China’s reform and opening-up. At the opening ceremony of the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference 2018 in April,Chinese President Xi Jinping stated that “China’s door of opening-up will not be closed and will only open even wider”. Reform and opening-up still remains the main theme today. In April 2018, in his inspection tour in the three coastal cities of Beibu Gulf, Lu Xinshe, Secretary of CPC Guangxi Committee, stressed that opening-up is a key measure to drive the development of Guangxi. In June 2018, Chen Wu, Chairman of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region Government, paid a special inspection tour to Fangchenggang, requiring it devote great energy to creating an industrial cluster for maritime economy.

Li Yanqiang commented that as a coastal and border city and a gateway to ASEAN, Fangchenggang will carry out reforms in eight aspects, including investment attraction,foreign trade, outbound investment and international cooperation, introduction of technologies and talents,opening-up of modern service industry, cross-border tourism cooperation, comprehensive opening-up and cooperation, and administrative approval and business system. It will make innovations in eight aspects, including optimizing the layout of areas for opening-up, highlighting the supporting role of industrial parks, building a modern logistics system, putting in place the system for streamlining customs clearance,opening up the investment model for the construction of the South Transport Corridor, and establishing an effective platform for opening-up. “These reforms and innovations will help Fangchenggang further improve its business environment and build itself into a new city with higher-level open economy,” he said.

Mr. Li Yanqiang (R) received interview with China-ASEAN Panorama

“We will give full play to our geographical advantages, take the opportunity of the 15thanniversary for China-ASEAN strategic partnership, and utilize the Southern Transport Corridor to further deepen cooperation with ASEAN countries, especially Vietnam”.

First, Fangchenggang will seize the major opportunities of the Southern Transport Corridor, participating in its construction, and actively integrate to the strategies of China and Guangxi.

Second, Fangchenggang will deepen communication with ASEAN countries. It will further strengthen all-round and multi-level communication with ASEAN countries,and boost policy connectivity and people-to-people bonds between the two sides, through China-ASEAN Expo,China-Vietnam (Dongxing-Mong Cai) International Trade& Tourism Expo and mutual exchanges and visits, China-Vietnam football friendly matches as well as international dragon boat festival.

Third, Fangchenggang will improve the connectivity of infrastructure. It will formulate and implement the “Threeyear Action Plan for Building the Sea and Land Channels of the Southern Transport Corridor”, move forward with the construction of land transport infrastructures such as G219 expressway, Fangdong Railway, Dongxing Port and Dongzhong Port, and sea transport infrastructures in Yuwan Port and Yunyuejiang Harbor, so as to form a multimodal transport system containing sea-rail transport, road-rail transport and road-sea transport. It will also speed up reform for streamlining customs clearance, and continuously perfect infrastructure with ASEAN countries.

Last, Fangchenggang will push forward industrial cooperation with ASEAN countries. It will accelerate the construction of national platforms for opening-up, such as Dongxing development and opening-up pilot zone, crossborder economic cooperation zone and cross-border tourism pilot zone. It will also apply pilot policies fl exibly, based on the characteristics of products of ASEAN countries, to create cross-border industrial clusters, such as cross-border labor services, cross-border tourism, border trade and localized processing, and step up industrial cooperation with ASEAN countries.

Speaking of its future development, Li Yanqiang pointed out that Fangchenggang, in addition to its pursuit to deepened opening-up and international cooperation, should endeavor to realize high-quality development of real economy. To accomplish this goal, it will promote coordinated and balanced development between rural and urban areas through the “Five-year Action Plan for Rural Revitalization”,guarantee and improve people’s livelihood, and channel serious efforts to protect ecological environment.

We have every reason to believe that Fangchenggang, by utilizing its advantages and resources of ocean, border and mountains, will be shining in Beibu Gulf in the future.