It was a busy time for the Three Gorges Logistics Park in Yichang of Hubei Province, where Ni Yongguang, the director of information center, was conducting final debugging for the Three Gorges Online Shopping Website. He told the reporter, more than 1,800 logistic enterprises of commerce and trade would be on line and run on this E-business platform in July. “Internet+Golden Waterway along the Yangtze River” , as the biggest public service platform for logistics, information platform, as well as storage cold-chain base in both the east of Chongqing City and the west of Hubei Province, had been primarily established.
　　Linking Chongqing City in its west and Wuhan City in its east, Yichang City is an important regional Central city at the junction point along the upper and middle reaches of Yangtze River. Last year, the gross output value of Yichang City had broken through 300 billion yuan, ranking the second among the cities of the same class in Central China and the forth among the cities of the same class along Yangtze River. “Yichang has entered a new round of development after The Development Planning of City Agglomeration along the Middle Reaches of Yangtze River had been approved and carried out by the State Council”, said Huang Chuping, the member of the standing committee in Hubei Province and municipal Party secretary of Yichang City. The 237 kilometers of Golden Waterway along the Yangtze River within Yichang accounts for about one tenth of the cruising range of Yangtze River. By building an economic belt of trillions yuan along the Yangtze River, promoting the construction of city agglomeration in The Three Gorges, and enhancing both the function of synthesized hub and the level of regional cooperation, Yichang is gradually becoming a “joint” that is used for the interconnection among economic zones in upper and down reaches along the Yangtze River.
　　The overall arrangement along the Yangtze River promotes the industrial transformation and upgrading. Yichang government is carrying out the strategy “To break through and develop along the Yangtze River”. Through setting up “four major platforms”, including Yichang New District, Yichang High-tech Zone, the Three Gorges tourism New District and the Three Gorges Hub Harbor District, and taking provincial-level High-tech Zones along the Yangtze River and development area as its carriers, Yichang government accelerates the development of six major “One Hundred Billion yuan” industries, such as fine chemical engineering, food&biological medicine, advanced equipment manufacturing, new materials, modern logistics and culture-oriented travel. Meanwhile, it focuses on the development of strategic emerging industry, such as electronic information, energy conservation&environment protection, new energy and so on. Besides, it also makes a breakthrough in modern service industry to speed up the construction of world-class industrial cluster along the Yangtze River in Yichang. In the first quarter of this year, four major industries in Yichang, including fine chemical engineering, food&biological medicine, advanced equipment manufacturing, and electronic information, have finished a total industrial output value of 110.205 billion yuan, accounting for 89.2% of industrial proportion in the city with an year-on-year increase of 12.6%. Up to the end of April this year, 666 “One Hundred Billion yuan” projects have been under construction in the economic corridor along Yangtze River, whose actual paid-in investment is 47.1 billion yuan with an year-on-year increase of 12.6%.
　　Innovation drive increases the vitality of development. The gathering of the development factors to the industrial parks and along the Yangtze River not only improves the transport chains of low cost, but also set up the new creative and innovative platform, thus high-growing high-tech enterprises spring up all over the place such as Yichang Wtau Electronic Equipment Co., Ltd and Nine Environmental Protection Science Technology Co., Ltd. Ma Xuming, the mayor of Yichang, introduced, “Yichang emphasizes on building up the service platform of innovation and entrepreneurship and information sharing platform for strategic emerging industries, tech SMEs and innovative talents.” Recently, some key programs have been smoothly pushed forward, such as “Yichang Intelligence Valley”, TusPark (Yichang), Peacebird Fashion Creative Park and Yichang Sensing IOT Business Incubator. This year, Yichang will newly build business incubator with an area of 0.2 million square meters and a batch of public R & D platforms like R & D centers and engineering technology center in order to make Yichang a first-class well-known gathering area and demonstration area for innovation and entrepreneurship. In the first quarter of this year, there are more than 700 enterprises in business incubator and 228 high-tech enterprises with the total added value of 13.12 billion yuan and with the growth of 14.5%.
　　The urban agglomeration in the Three Gorges Area leads the new regional development. Yichang together with the other 13 cities and regions like Jinzhou, Jinmen, Wanzhou, Dazhou, Zhangjiajie, will build the urban agglomeration in the Three Gorges Area with an area of 17 square kilometers and the total output value of 1.5 trillion yuan. Relying on the water route, road and air three dimensional traffic network consisting of the golden waterway of Yangtze River, Shanghai-Chengdu Expressway, Yichang-Wanzhou Railway, Yichang Sanxia Airport and other ways, the urban agglomeration in the Three Gorges Area will within the plan of Yangtze River Economic Belt improve the major infrastructure construction and major industrial distribution including the transportation, water conservancy, environmental protection and tourism. Therefore, it can realize the integrative development and connection with the urban agglomeration in the Middle Reaches of the Yangtze River and Chengdu-Chongqing urban agglomeration.
　　Because of the proper layout along the Yangtze River, industry reconstruction and the innovative drive, the GDP of Yichang was estimated at 66.29 billion yuan in the first quarter of this year. (Reporter Wei Jingsong; correspondent Hu Zhibin, Dan Zhengyan according to the Economic Daily on June 11th)