Driven by the Chinese government's desire to make it the new engine of development to the west, Chongqing is growing at breakneck speed and attracting more business travellers every day.
By Florian Guillemin -
The only inland city in China to enjoy the status of autonomous municipality, with all the economic appeal that implies, Chongqing owes this distinction to its strategic position at the heart of the country, at the confluence of the Jialing and the Yangtze, the famous blue river on which goods travel to the sea and Shanghai.
A veritable remake of the Chinese version of the conquest of the West is being played out at Chongqingnearly 2,000 km from Beijing. With its 32 million inhabitants for 82400 km².the world's most populous urban area. These extraordinary dimensions are in fact maintained by a subtle confusion between the city of Chongqing intramuros and its political reality, that of an autonomous municipality. And it is precisely around this very special status of free zone the fate of this city - but is it still a city? - pushed to centre stage by central government.
The status of autonomous municipality granted, from 1997The city of Chongqing - the fourth largest in China after Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin - places the megalopolis under the direct authority of central government. Eager to make "YuChongqing, the nerve centre of western China for trade and transport, the government has launched a vast development plan. The whole thing is being carried out at a frenetic pace, with tax incentives and mass construction. The problems caused by soaring property prices and the rising cost of labour on China's coastline have led to this rebalancing towards the interior of the country, this 'Go West' policy. The influx of population generated by the construction of the Three Gorges Dam, near Chongqing, attracted a cohort of workers, and more generally contributed to the economic, industrial and demographic development of the city.
In the middle flows the Yangtze
A quick look at the statistics shows that the project to create a gigantic city is already paying off. Chongqing displays the highest growth rate in the country for 2011 (+16.4 %), following an already buoyant 2010 (+17.1 %). According to the municipality's statistics office, foreign investment is expected to exceed ten billion dollars for the past year.
It's true that Chongqing's geographical location has a lot to offer. The junction of the Jialing and Yangtzethe third longest river in the world, offers a perfect route for exporting the products of the region's long-established heavy industry, led by the automotive industry, to which are now added the products of the thriving high-tech industry. Hewlett-Packard, Acer, Asus and Foxconn, to name but a few, have already made the move to Chongqing, taking the city to the forefront of the international computer manufacturing scene, with no fewer than 24.07 million PCs produced during 2011.
Continued development means taking environmental objectives into account, through the city's "Chongqing Five" policy
This economic boom is logically driven by unbridled construction activity. Wedged between the mountains, bathed in a stagnant mist - and what a mist it is... omnipresent... an almost English fog! - the city continues to grow vertically, following the lines of force underlined by cranes and skyscrapers. For there is no shortage of projects, and their pharaonic appearance augurs exponential growth. The showcase and driving force behind this development, Liangjiangthe new "two rivers" zone, defines a particularly ambitious new 1,200 km² development area, the third largest in China. This new area will also be home to one of the city's flagship projects: the future Chongqing International Convention and Exhibition Center which is due to open in October. The "butterfly in flight" - the nickname given to the building because of its silhouette - will feature 16 halls covering 600,000 m² and is due to be inaugurated in October. make Chongqing the convention capital of western China.
70 million passengers expected
Inevitably, growth requires transport infrastructure to link the city both to the rest of the domestic network and to the global market. With this in mind, terminal 3 of the international airport is due to open by 2015. ADPI, the engineering arm ofParis airportshas won the contract and launched an ambitious project with a final capacity of 70 million passengers a year. Airlines are lining up to carry the growing flow of business travellers. Qatar Airways started operating on the Doha-Chongqing route at the end of 2011, with three weekly flights, while Finnairhas been serving the metropolis since last May. Visit rail network is following suit. A dedicated freight link was inaugurated in 2011, linking Chongqing to... Antwerp. A 10,000 km route through Mongolia, Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Germany and Belgium, based on a intermodal transport. At the same time, hotel groups are opening more and more top-of-the-range establishments designed to cater for a growing business clientele, such as the Sheraton Hotel and the Shangri-La, which opened in 2011, and before them the JW Marriott and the InterContinental.
Despite the historical links between Chongqing and heavy industry, and the polluted image that emanates from it, the public authorities have not ignored environmental concerns. Under the impetus of Bo Xilaileader of the city's Communist Party - recently replaced by Zhang Dejiang at the end of a veritable political soap opera - and the mayor Huan QifanUrban development has incorporated sustainable objectives into the policy or the Chongqing Five. A roadmap focused on the environment, traffic, safety, health and well-being. France was quick to seize this opportunity by organising the 2011 edition of France-China, Eco-Cités last December. An opportunity for Ubi France and its partners to bring together French and Chinese stakeholders around an inspiring collaborative project: "french solutions for low-carbon chinese cities. Designated in 2010 "city of the future by a Franco-Chinese conference, Chongqing is combining gigantism with the present and should rapidly become one of Asia's and the world's leading economic centres.
Chongqing's Times Square district obviously doesn't have the same tourist appeal as its New York counterpart. Nevertheless, the "capital of fog" is attracting a growing flow of business travellers, won over by the unfathomable development potential of the Chinese metropolis.
By using our site, you consent to the use of cookies.
We use cookies on our site to store and/or access information about your device, in particular to offer you advertising and to compile statistics in order to improve ergonomics, navigation and editorial content.
Analytical cookies enable us to gather valuable information to optimise the performance of our site and improve your user experience.
By accepting cookies, you are supporting the work of our editorial team in providing you with quality information, while enabling us to offer you content and services tailored to your interests.
For more information, please consult our page Privacy policy.
