Century-old industrial city joins modern world

New growth drivers

With a population of about 8 million, Tangshan is aiming to become a window city for economic cooperation in Northeast Asia, a new-style industrialization base in the Bohai Rim area and an important pivot of China's economic cycle.

In 2017, Tangshan became one of the country's first 12 cities, or economic zones, to act as demonstration areas for industrial transformation and upgrading.

Five emerging industries - including intelligent rail transit, robotics, electronics and intelligent instruments - are becoming new drivers of the city's economy.

Home to CRRC Tangshan, one of China's major high-speed train manufacturers, the city has established an intelligent rail transit industry alliance and an innovation and development center for the rail industry.

The combined annual output value of 56 robot manufacturing companies hit 6 billion yuan last year, or half of the total output value of the Tangshan Hi-tech Industrial Development Zone, according to an official with the State-level facility.

CITIC Heavy Industry Kaicheng Intelligent Equipment, which is located in the zone, aims to become a world-class specialist robotics manufacturing base. To that end, it makes more than 30 different robotic products.

"We invest more than 6.5 percent of our main business revenue in research and development every year to ensure our leading position in technology," said Lu Wentao, the company's general manager.

According to data from the Tangshan Industry and Information Technology Bureau, from January to April the added value of the five emerging sectors jumped by 31.9 percent, 20.7 percentage points higher than average growth in the city.

Chen Jingming, deputy head of the city's development and reform commission, said, "We take key emerging industrial projects as a booster for development."

In the first quarter of this year, Tangshan's GDP registered year-on-year growth of 7.8 percent, the city's highest Q1 rate since 2014.

"Tangshan is in an overlapping period during which traditional industries experience arduous transformation, while emerging industries are being fostered," said Zhang Gui, an expert on the integrated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei cluster at Hebei University of Technology in the northern port city of Tianjin.

"Technological innovation is the lifeline for the successful transformation of old industrial bases. Tangshan must embrace the new round of industrial revolution backed by the internet, big data and artificial intelligence."

According to the 2019 Global Cities Outlook report by A.T. Kearney, an international consultancy, Tangshan ranks as the world's 77th most-promising city.

The cargo throughput of Tangshan Port reached 637 million tons last year, jumping to third place among the country's coastal ports. In the first five months of this year, the port's throughput grew by 7.1 percent from the same period last year to reach 265 million tons.

As a new area of Tangshan Port, the Caofeidian port zone in Caofeidian district is booming.

It boasts two of the country's seven approved berths that can dock vessels of 400,000 tons. The port zone has 101 berths dealing with ore, coal, crude oil, liquefied natural gas and containers, and has handling capacity of 470 million tons.

With direct maritime trade routes to more than 70 countries and regions, Caofeidian is a new growth center for Tangshan, as well as the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei cluster. It has attracted significant investment and emerging industries from Beijing under plans to jointly build Caofeidian into a demonstration zone for integrated development.

Last year, the port area saw a logistics trade volume of 100 billion yuan, and the number is expected to double this year. The booming port area aims to become the world's largest logistics center for coal and ore.