Before the National Day Holiday, Xiling district held the modern business logistics industry investment promotion. Nearly 200 publicly-voted restaurants, hotels, entertainment venues, shops, travel agencies and other high-quality enterprises formed alliance and signed a strategic cooperation agreement with “Baidu Nuomi” (an online group purchase service). 20 enterprises gained nearly 10 million yuan credit form the Rural Commercial Bank.

Apart from highlighting the advantages of location, finance, business and travel, science and education as well as humanity, Xiling district has periodically carried out the docking exchange meeting of "government-industry-academy-research-capital" to achieve resource sharing, information exchange and open up the integrated route of "government-industry-academy-research-capital". Since last year, nearly 20 billion yuan credit lines have been signed for bank-government cooperation and 296 cooperative projects have been signed between banks and enterprises with a total credit and loans of 16.2 billion yuan.

“More than 75% of the city's financial enterprises are located in Xiling district, including over 50 world well-known brand stores and over 100 research institutions and colleges such as China Three Gorges University, the 710th Research Institution of China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation, etc. Besides, it’s also the core context of Yichang as well as the source of the city development. Integrating and activating these soft powers will make the district more competitive.” Ren Wei, deputy secretary and head of Xiling district, said.

Over the past few years, the real estate of Xiling district has not only flourished but also brought nearly 100,000 m2 idle commercial areas. Through careful analysis, Xiling district introduced the building headquarter economy development plan timely, up to now, the average occupancy rate of buildings in Xiling district has amounted to 90%. Huaxiang Group has successfully signed a 20,000 m2 Korea Pavilion project with Korea MSM at Yingpanshan CAZ. The district has successfully introduced 115 headquarter enterprises like the Neusoft Group. Among the 34 commercial buildings, 8 of them has more than 10 million yuan tax revenue and 2 of them has over 50 million yuan tax revenue, others being characteristic buildings of information intermediaries, financial services and wisdom media, etc. “The main direction for the future development of Xiling district is integrating the ‘government-industry-academy-research-capital’ power to make breakthroughs in the development of modern service industry, with the building headquarter economy being the force and modern logistics, tourism and leisure, financial services, culture and creativity industries, life and health being the six leading industries." Lu Bin, Party Secretary of Xiling district, gave a clear answer to the Xiling development. In the first half of 2016, 13 new projects of over 100-million-yuan investment in the above-mentioned six industries were signed in Xiling District, 8 projects were launched with 2.29-billion-yuan investment fund in place. The important measures for building a comprehensive reform pilot of provincial modern service industry include accurate positioning, dislocation development, promoting the productive service industry to extend for specialization and high-end value chain, and changing life-service industry into the fine and high-quality one.

It is reported that in the first half of 2016, the added value of the service industry exceeded 10 billion yuan, accounting for 70.3% of regional GDP. It is estimated that by 2021, the added value of service industry will take up more than 75% of regional GDP.

(The correspondents: Liu Mingqiang, Gong Hui)