{"id":26739,"date":"2012-07-05T19:10:34","date_gmt":"2012-07-05T18:10:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.voyages-d-affaires.com\/chongqing-une-megalopole-tout-en-demesure-20120705.html"},"modified":"2020-01-28T13:59:26","modified_gmt":"2020-01-28T12:59:26","slug":"chongqing-a-megalopolis-on-a-grand-scale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.voyages-d-affaires.com\/en\/chongqing-a-megalopolis-on-a-grand-scale","title":{"rendered":"Chongqing: an oversized megalopolis"},"content":{"rendered":"

A veritable remake of the Chinese version of the conquest of the West is being played out at Chongqing<\/strong>nearly 2,000 km from Beijing<\/strong>. With its 32 million inhabitants for 82400 km\u00b2.<\/strong>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<\/strong> the fate of this city - but is it still a city? - pushed to centre stage by central government.<\/p>\n

The status of autonomous municipality<\/strong> granted, from 1997<\/strong>The 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 \"Yu<\/strong>Chongqing, 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.<\/p>\n

In the middle flows the Yangtze<\/h2>\n
A quick look at the statistics shows that the project to create a gigantic city<\/strong> is already paying off. Chongqing displays the highest growth rate in the country<\/strong> 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<\/strong> for the past year.<\/div>\n
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It's true that Chongqing's geographical location has a lot to offer. The junction of the Jialing<\/strong> and Yangtze<\/strong>the 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<\/strong>. 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<\/strong> during 2011.<\/div>\n
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Continued development means taking environmental objectives into account, through the city's \"Chongqing Five\" policy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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, Liangjiang<\/strong>the new \"two rivers\" zone, defines a particularly ambitious new 1,200 km\u00b2 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<\/strong> 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 m\u00b2 and is due to be inaugurated in October. make Chongqing the convention capital of western China<\/strong>.<\/div>\n
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70 million passengers expected<\/h2>\n
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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 airports<\/strong>has won the contract and launched an ambitious project with a final capacity of 70 million passengers a year<\/strong>. Airlines are lining up to carry the growing flow of business travellers. Qatar Airways<\/strong><\/a> started operating on the Doha-Chongqing route at the end of 2011, with three weekly flights, while Finnair<\/strong> <\/a>has been serving the metropolis since last May. Visit rail network<\/strong> is following suit. A dedicated freight link was inaugurated in 2011, linking Chongqing to... Antwerp<\/strong>. A 10,000 km route through Mongolia, Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Germany and Belgium, based on a intermodal transport<\/strong>. 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.<\/p>\n