As the country's first inland state-level development zone, Liangjiang New Area has been designated as a pilot area to promote the construction of a smart city, ecological city and sponge city.

According to the Liangjiang administrative committee, the construction of a smart, ecological and sponge city will help the area to improve its services and supporting facilities to attract more talents and enterprises.

As early as in the 2013, Liangjiang was set up as the one of the areas in the first batch of smart city construction pilot project by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development. In recent years, Liangjiang has been working on improving governmental management standards and public service abilities to promote smart city construction.

In July, the official app of Chongqing's Liangjiang New Area entered its acceptance period. As one of the projects in Liangjiang's smart city construction, great emphasis has been placed on the user experience design of the official Liangjiang app to enable a better customer experience and to better serve local people and investors in Liangjiang.

During Liangjiang's ecological city construction progress, Yuelai Ecology Park – also located in the area - has been accepted onto the country's list of green ecological demonstration sites.

Chongqing was listed as one of the first batch of pilot cities to construct a 'sponge city' this April, together with 15 other cities. The 'sponge city' project will be built in Yuelai New District over the next three years. The plans for the final project will be released at the end of this month. Sponge cities are a series of new projects being launched by the Chinese government to make full use of rain water.

Approximately 800 million yuan ($128 million) will be invested in the construction of a pilot 'sponge city' project in Yuelai New District, Chongqing, according to Liangjiang New Area. The project will form part of a comprehensive multi-functional urban district in Liangjiang New Area.

The success of the 'sponge city' pilot project in Yuelai New District will set a good example to Liangjiang New Area and wider areas in the Chongqing municipality.

Edited by Jacob Hooson