On May 16, Guangzhou Green Development Report was released and the seminar on "Building a Growth Pole in Northern Guangzhou" was held in Huadu District, Guangzhou. The seminar, guided by the People's Government of Huadu District, hosted by Southern Metropolis Daily, and themed on “Leading the Future of the Greater Bay Area with Green and Low-carbon Vision", was designed to provide suggestions to Huadu on how to seize the strategic opportunity of "dual carbon goals", follow the tide to promote high-quality development, and shift the industry to the road of green and low-carbon development.

　　At the meeting, Huadu District focused on the introduction of the Action Plan for Promoting High-quality Development of the New Energy Industry (Draft for Comments) (hereinafter referred to as the "Plan"). With focus on the development of industries like new energy vehicles, photovoltaic module manufacturing, new energy storage, and hydrogen energy, Huadu will strive to push the new energy industry of the District over the 10 billion mark in output value by 2025 and 50 billion yuan by 2030.

　　Huadu is praised for exploration in green finance

　　The next step is to advance from a "pilot zone" to a "demonstration zone"

　　According to the report of CPC 20th National Congress, it is a key move to promote green and low-carbon economic and social development in order to achieve high-quality development. In the Guangzhou Implementation Plan for Carbon Peaking released in March this year, "Ten Major Actions for Carbon Peaking” were proposed as the centerpiece.

　　The Guangzhou Green and Low-carbon Development Report released at the meeting presents a green and low-carbon indicator system that is developed in accordance with the national green and low-carbon development policies and by referring to mature green and low-carbon indicator systems in China. Consisting of 4 first-level indicators and a total of 12 second-level indicators, the system is mainly designed to reflect the effectiveness of the 11 districts of Guangzhou in energy consumption reduction, economic restructuring, water and pollution control, and green and low-carbon city. The report rates the 11 districts in three groups, S (excellent), A (good) and B (passed), based on their green and low-carbon indicators; and Huadu, Huangpu and Nansha are rated S.

　　Since its approval in June 2017, Guangzhou Green Finance Reform and Innovation Pilot Zone, with Huadu District as its core area, ranked first in development for four consecutive times, and has become an important "green finance model" of Guangzhou. Through the introduction of the "1+4" policy, Huadu District took the lead in the country to establish support and incentive mechanism for green finance and green industry development, mechanism for certification of green enterprises and green projects, industry-finance docking mechanism for green projects, and compensation mechanism for green finance risks .

　　"To achieve the 'dual carbon goals', private capital needs to be guided and galvanized by a system of green finance policies to invest in green, low-carbon and sustainable fields in a market-oriented manner." Shen Hongtao, researcher with the Key Laboratory of Philosophy and Social Science in Guangdong Province at Jinan University and the executive director of the Research Center of Low Carbon Economy for Guangzhou Region at Jinan University remarked that by incorporating environmental factors into the decision-making and operation management processes of financial business, green finance prevents the funds from flowing to industries of high pollution, high energy consumption and high emissions. It is the very goal of Guangzhou's green finance practice to promote high-quality development of industries.

　　Now, Huadu District has become home to 6 green bank branches and 2 green bank sub-branches, as well as to a number of special green entities, including the country's first provincial green finance innovation center, and PICC Innovation Laboratory for Property & Casualty Green Insurance Products. With more than 390 institutions registered in Huadu Green Financial Street, the District demonstrates increasing improvement in green finance organization system, and in ability of reform and innovation.

　　Also proposed in the Guangzhou Implementation Plan for Carbon Peaking is the carrying out of "carbon peaking and carbon neutrality pilot action". It has been learned that Huadu will be committed to further upgrading the green finance reform and innovation pilot zone, trying to make it a demonstration zone; and will explore to create more green financial products, and contribute innovative experience to the reform of green finance in the Greater Bay Area and even the whole country.

　　Based on the excellent ecological and cultural tourism resource endowed on Huadu, efforts will be focused on the conservation of Guangzhou-Qingyuan Green Core, and Liuxi River Blue Vein to shape the green framework of "one bay, two belts and multiple corridors", with the aim to build a "green and beautiful Huadu" where man live harmoniously with nature. At the same time, by putting efforts to implement in a deep-going way the "High-quality Development Project of Hundred Counties, Thousands Towns and Ten Thousand Villages", and to vigorously develop eco-cultural tourism, actively promote projects such as Sunac Cultural Tourism City and CTS Aranya Jiulong Lake Tourism Resort, carefully build choice rural tourism routes and revolution-featured study bases, the District will try to make important contribution to the cooperation and integrated development of ecological cultural tourism in the northern part of the Greater Bay Area.

　　Release the action plan for supporting high-quality development of the new energy industry

　　Plan a layout of "one zone, one city, one port and one bay" for new energy industry

　　Accelerating the development of the new energy industry is an important step to achieve the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals and to build a new development pattern. In order to accelerate the high-quality development of the new energy industry, Huadu District is quickening the pace of formulating policies and measures for green energy industry.

　　The Action Plan for Promoting High-quality Development of the New Energy Industry (Draft for Comments) released by Huadu District at the seminar outlines 24 detailed tasks in five aspects: expanding the scale of the new energy industry, actively cultivating new momentum for green development, expanding the application scenarios of the new energy industry, increasing the research and development of new energy technology, and optimizing the policy environment for industrial development.

　　Wang Yaojun, Deputy Director of Development and Reform Bureau of Huadu District , Guangzhou and Executive Deputy Director of the Greater Bay Area Office of Huadu, said Huadu District is now forming a space layout of new energy industry featuring "one city, one zone, one port and one bay", with focus on developing new energy automobile industry, photovoltaic industry (photovoltaic power and PV Modules), energy storage system, smart grid, renewable resource recycling and related equipment manufacturing, and parts manufacturing industry.

　　To be specific, "one zone" refers to the demonstration zone for air-rail integrated development. With the North Railway Station and the airport as two pillars, the air-rail integrated demonstration zone will comprise high-end industries such as trade fair and exhibition, scientific and technological innovation services, and cultural tourism consumption; a golden corridor of air and rail innovation will be built in the southern part of the District that has the highest time effectiveness of air and rail, and is closest to Guangzhou downtown. "One city" refers to the small new energy automobile city in the west. Consisting of four key industrial platforms, including Huadu International Industrial Park of Advanced Manufacturing and Xinhua Industrial Park, with Dongfeng Nissan as the flagship enterprise, it focuses on the development of advanced manufacturing industries such as new energy vehicles and intelligent equipment, aiming to build a 200-billion-level automobile industry cluster. "One port" refers to the airport-based digital smart port in the east. Through promoting the interaction between the airway hub and the Knowledge City innovation hub, joining the Guangzhou-Shenzhen Science and Technology Innovation Corridor, it will develop the airport-based high-tech manufacturing industry, especially the new generation of information technology and digital economy on the basis of such key platforms as the east and west sections of the airport-based digital smart port. "One bay" refers to the cultural tourism ecological bay in the north. Relying on diversified ecological and cultural tourism resources, it will focus on the conservation of the Guangzhou- Qingyuan green core in the area north of Shanqian Avenue, and the formation of the green development framework of northern Huadu.

　　As the largest automobile production base in South China, Huadu is now marching towards a 250 billion-level automotive industry cluster through efforts in recent years in cultivating “2+5+N” automotive industry platforms, and vigorous development of intelligent and connected vehicles and new-energy vehicles. Experts at the seminar paid great attention to the industrial think tanks in Huadu, "Fuel vehicles and new energy vehicles have become two different powerhouses, and yet they are in a relationship not so much a substitution as an optimization and advancement. Huadu’s industrial advantages in traditional fuel vehicles can be promoted to industrial upgrading and transformation by optimizing the industrial chain and promoting the transformation of the automobile industry, such as by introducing the battery industry chain and optimizing the supporting industry of automobiles. ” Said Wen Hong, Deputy Dean of the Graduate School, and professor and doctoral supervisor of the School of Public Administration of South China University of Technology.

　　In order to expand the new energy industry, Huadu District will increase attraction of high-quality enterprises, and implement the "top leader" project and targeted investment promotion to vigorously promote the clustering of the new energy industry; will adopt "one policy for one enterprise" approach to focused cultivation of leading backbone enterprises; will strengthen guaranteed supply of energy and electricity supply, and develop the biomass energy industry on the basis of projects such as the Waste-to-energy Plant No. 5 and the Shiling Landfill Biogas Power Generation; and will promote to put into operation as soon as possible the second phase of the Huadu Thermal Power Project. Full play will be given to the strength of central and local state-owned enterprises to explore new modes of industrial development and operation.

　　In addition, Huadu District will continue to optimize the policy environment for industrial development, focusing on satisfying the land use demand of new energy industry projects with a fixed asset investment of 1 billion yuan or more. A new energy industry development fund will be established to guide financial institutions to serve new energy industry projects. Research on the roadmap for talent development in the new energy industry will be strengthened, and the "four major projects" of talent introduction and cultivation will be implemented. New energy enterprises are encouraged to participate in the "Belt and Road" initiative, support will be given to export-oriented new energy enterprises to engage in carbon footprint accounting and certification services, and efforts will be made to promote large-scale "going abroad" of products to participate in international competition, so as to further release industrial vitality.

　　Build a growth pole in the north of Guangzhou

　　More conscious of the responsibility of Huadu

　　As the only region in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area that has both large of aviation hub and railway hub, the topic of how Huadu could ride the momentum and build a high-quality northern growth pole in the future was enthusiastically discussed at the seminar.

　　Deng Nan, Chief Engineer of Huadu Sub-bureau of Guangzhou Municipal Planning and Natural Resources Bureau said in the roundtable session of the seminar that in the future, the District will take advantage of opportunities coming with the new round of land and space master planning, and the preparation of Guangzhou 2049 development strategy plan, among others, to continuously strengthen the connection with city downtown, improve the presence and strategic height of Huadu, and seize the opportunity of air and rail integrated development to build Huadu into "an international comprehensive transportation hub gateway, a new hub-type economic highland, a world-class aviation area, and a new platform for international opening up in the Greater Bay Area".

　　How to tap the potential space of the new energy industry to help build a new northern growth pole and a power source for high-quality development? Wang Yaojun, Deputy Director of Development and Reform Bureau of Huadu District, Guangzhou and Executive Deputy Director of the Greater Bay Area Office of Huadu, pointed out that work should be done on such fronts as supporting the accelerated development of the new energy vehicle industry chain, strengthening investment attraction, increasing policy support, paying more attention to green development, and strengthening publicity and training. Take supporting the new energy vehicle industry chain as an example, the District party committee and the District government are currently going all out to build a new energy vehicle industrial park. Faced with the development bottlenecks and difficulties of the enterprises, and some issues of great importance, the District party committee and the District government provided support in accordance with the principle of "one deliberation for one issue, and one policy for one enterprise", and the result is a better business environment for the development of the new energy vehicle industry in terms of space, carrier or industrial supporting. “In the next step, we will continue to focus on the needs arising from 'strengthening and supplementing industry chain' of the new energy vehicle industry, and the nearby layout of power batteries, electronic control, and charging equipment among others, to build a 250 billion-level automotive industry cluster."

　　Said Wen Hong, Deputy Dean of the Graduate School, and professor and doctoral supervisor of the School of Public Administration of South China University of Technology, said that Huadu not only has such traditional advantageous industries as automobiles and leather goods, but also is the only air-rail dual hub in the Greater Bay Area. Now, Huadu District has come to a critical point of transformation and upgrading of traditional industries and development of emerging industries. This process not only important to Huadu, but is of great demonstration significance for Guangzhou city and Guangdong province. Huadu is not only the north growth pole of Guangzhou, it can also serve as an important growth plate connecting the Pearl River Delta and northern Guangdong to empower rural revitalization and coordinated regional development of the province.

　　"The idea of ‘building the North Growth Pole of Guangzhou’ shall be understood in the context of high-quality development; high-quality development demands comprehensive improvement of the city's functions, not only the traditional economic and industrial functions, but also the innovative functions and cultural functions; in other words, it requires Huadu to be more conscious of its responsibility." Said Huang Lihua, Vice President and professor of the Party School of CPC Guangzhou Committee (Guangzhou Academy of Governance). He pointed out that Huadu is an important gateway hub with great resource endowment, and it is of great significance how to achieve green transformation and digital transformation of the future industry, and how to improve public services, and that Huadu's building of north growth pole of Guangzhou should be guided by the principles of innovation and vitality.