Zhang Xi, Vice Governor of Anhui Province, visited China (Jiangsu) Pilot FTZ Nanjing Area on the afternoon of March 2 accompanied by Huang Lan, Deputy Secretary General of Jiangsu Provincial Government, Luo Qun, member of the Standing Committee of CPC Nanjing Committee and Deputy Secretary of the CPC working committee of Jiangbei New Area, Liu Guang, Deputy Director General of Anhui Provincial Department of Commerce, Cui Jian, Deputy Director General of China Jiangsu Pilot FTZ Office, Lin Qikun, Member of the CPC Working Committee of Nanjing Jiangbei New Area and Deputy Director of Administrative Committee of the New Area, and Tan Yong, Deputy Director of Nanjing Municipal Bureau of Commerce.

Zhang Xi and others first came to the New Area Planning Exhibition Hall in the Citizen Center of Jiangbei New Area for an inspection visit where Zhang learnt in details the achievements Jiangbei New Area (Pilot FTZ) had scored in such fields as urban infrastructure, transportation planning, industrial layout, ecological protection and free trade explorations. In the section of “New Horizons in Opening-up”, Zhang was informed of the latest progress China (Jiangsu) Pilot FTZ Nanjing area had made in institutional and mechanism innovation, improvement in business environment, reforms in priority areas and other fields. He noted that Pilot FTZ enjoyed enormous potential in the new development paradigm. The Pilot FTZ Nanjing Area experienced heightened atmosphere in innovation with the business environment steadily upgraded. Setting the industrial goal of growing into “Two Towns and One Center (a gene town, a chip town and a new financial center)”, Jiangbei New Area continuously fostered new growth drivers for the development of free trade. On this note, Anhui Pilot FTZ should seek synergy with Jiangsu Pilot FTZ Nanjing Area and accelerated explorations into institutional innovation and the building of opening-up platforms based on its favorable geographical location so as to constantly roll out new measures for coordinated development of pilot FTZs in the Yangtze River Delta region.

Zhang’s next stop was Jiangsu GemPharmatech Co., Ltd. where he was briefed on the company profile, main business, institutional innovation and R&D of new products. Giving thumb-up to the accomplishment of the company, Zhang expressed his hope for it to firmly grasp opportunities brought by the Pilot FTZ, inject new vigor into industrial development and contribute its due share to elevating the level of the industrial chain and supply chain given the industrial positioning and resource endowment of the Pilot FTZ Nanjing Area.

At Nanjing Transformation Research Institute of Molecular Medicine, Peking University, Zhang with the entourage visited laboratories there and learnt about the technological R&D, business incubation and market operations. Focusing on the R&D of “innovative drugs for major diseases” and “state-of-the-art biomedical imaging equipment”, the institute set eyes on concerns weighing heavily on people’s minds currently including alopecia and heart diseases, put into place a public technology service platform underpinned by high-throughput brain imaging and R&D of new drugs, and promoted the commercialization of a batch of top-notch R&D deliverables here in Nanjing. China (Jiangsu) Pilot FTZ Nanjing Area, according to Zhang, had pooled a host of high-end and cutting-edge elements and thus burst with strong vitality in technological innovation, with a line-up of new high-end R&D institutes settling here represented by Nanjing Transformation Research Institute of Molecular Medicine, Peking University. It’s important that Anhui Pilot FTZ work ever more closely with the Nanjing Area in bettering and integrating technological forces in the Yangtze River Delta region, concentrating on core technologies and intensifying efforts on surmounting difficulties. Besides, Anhui also was expected to draw upon the successful experience of its Nanjing counterpart, enhance efficiency of resource allocation, deepen the mechanism and institutional reform, and propel the coordinated opening-up at a higher level in the Yangtze River Delta.

During the visit, Luo Qun, Member of the Standing Committee of Nanjing Municipal Government and Deputy Secretary of the Party Working Committee of Nanjing Jiangbei New Area, stated that the Pilot FTZ Nanjing Area should join hands with its Anhui counterpart in actively exploring the establishment of a joint development mechanism to promote the sharing and inter-connectivity of resource elements and policy measures. Fully leveraging the complementarity of advantages, both needed to act on the new development philosophy and strengthen in-depth integration in a bid to achieve shared benefits and jointly bolster high-quality development of the Nanjing Metropolitan Area and the Yangtze River Delta region integration.