Why Jiaxing: Regional Advantages
Jiaxing is an important city of the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) city cluster and the Shanghai metropolis circle, and is the sub-center of the Hangzhou metropolis circle. Boasting favorable geographical location and convenient transport, Jiaxing is accelerating the construction of major transportation infrastructure including intercity railways, high-speed railways and airport improvements to build itself into a strategic hub among the YRD cities integrating railway, aviation and river-sea intermodal transport.
(1) YRD traffic hub
Situated at the geographic center of the YRD, Jiaxing's traffic arteries extend in all directions, and include the Shanghai-Hangzhou railway, Shanghai-Hangzhou high-speed railway, national highway 320 and Shanghai-Hangzhou Expressway (G60). The Hangzhou-Pudong, Zhapu-Jiaxing-Suzhou and Shanghai-Jiaxing-Huzhou expressways pass through Jiaxing. The Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, Hangzhou-Shanghai and Zhapu-Jiaxing-Suzhou watercourses are interconnected with the Changxing-Huzhou-Shanghai, Hangzhou-Huzhou-Wuxi waterways and the Qiantang River, forming a waterway network in northern Zhejiang. The Hangzhou Bay Bridge links Jiaxing with Ningbo while the Jiashao Cross-river Channel connects Jiaxing with Shaoxing. Upon completion of major transport projects including the Nantong-Suzhou-Jiaxing-Ningbo high-speed railway, Shanghai-Zhapu-Hangzhou high-speed railway, Shanghai-Jiaxing intercity railway and Jiaxing Airport, Jiaxing will possess a 30-minute high-speed railway circle and a one-hour commuting circle between major cities in the YRD and play a more important role as a city hub in the YRD region.
(2) High capacity urban platforms
Jiaxing will develop a "dual-center" development engine in the future. A 50-square-kilometer high-speed railway new town will be built with Jiaxing South Railway Station as its core. It will be an internationalized modern new town integrating the functions of traffic hub, scientific and technological innovation, and commerce, and take over Shanghai's function spillover. Meanwhile, a cultural center with Nanhu Lake at the core will be forged. A total of 100 projects with investment of 200 billion yuan ($28.07 billion) have been carried out to improve Jiaxing's urban quality and competitiveness.
(3) Jiaxing Port
Jiaxing Port, also called Zhapu Port, is a State Class-A opening-up port. It is the only good deep water port on the north bank of Hangzhou Bay, the first river-sea intermodal transport port in Zhejiang, and the only estuary in northern Zhejiang. It houses 48 overseas productive berths including 35 with 10,000 DWT. In 2018, Jiaxing Port completed cargo throughput of 96.89 million tons, up by 9.8 percent year on year, and container throughput of 1.72 million TEUs, up by 19.4 percent. Both cargo and container throughput were record highs and took the lead in growth rates in Zhejiang province. Jiaxing Port will continuously boost in-depth cooperation with Shanghai Port and Ningbo-Zhoushan Port, accelerate the construction of high-level watercourses, improve river-sea intermodal transport capacity and become an important intermodal transport hub in the YRD.
(4) International airport logistics center
Jiaxing is forging an aviation logistics hub. Leveraging the opportunity of building a military-civil hybrid airport, Jiaxing is driving spatial transport development to construct an intermodal international airport logistics center. A global aviation logistics hub with 12.2 billion yuan investment broke ground in 2018. The first phase of the project, with total land usage of 1,454 mu (96.93 hectares) and a building area of 600,000 square meters, mainly consists of an aviation cargo shipping hub, an aircraft maintenance zone, a global express delivery operation center, a smart logistics park and auxiliary offices. When it goes into operation in 2021, the hub will be a global operation center, an R&D innovation center and a settlement center providing aviation logistics for giants in the domestic express delivery industry.