In February 2018, Yantian District of Shenzhen was selected as the first batch of SUC pilot cities, and was officially announced by the SUC PMC at the official network session of the 9th World Urban Forum organized by UN-Habitat.
Back to 2017, General Office of the Shenzhen Municipal People's Government issued the Shenzhen Sustainable Development Plan (2017-2030) to take the lead in responding the U.N. 2030 Agenda, the spirit of General Secretary Xi’s series of important speeches and the new concept, new philosophy and new strategy of governance. “Creating the SUC International Demonstration City” was formally incorporated into plan, the piloting implementation was carried out in district level, and first to be implemented in Yantian District.
Yantian District is located in the eastern part of Shenzhen, by the mountains and the sea, with the ecological control area accounting for 68% of the total area under its jurisdiction, making it a veritable ecological district. The district will take the creation of the "SUC International Demonstration City" as an opportunity to crack the critical bottlenecks which are restricting their sustainable development, then comprehensively promote the construction of the National Ecological Civilization Demonstration Pilot Zone, promote the harmonious development of economic construction and social undertakings and create a replicable and scalable sustainable development model with Yantian Characteristics.
2018 marks the 40th anniversary of the reform and opening and the 20th anniversary of the founding of Yantian District. Yantian take it as a new beginning, promoting a new round of great development and leap forward, while the integrated sustainable development of environment, economy and society is also pushing forward. In the Yantian District Government’s 2018 Report on the Work of Government, it is stated that the Government will focus on eleven development projects, and they are:
1.Seizing the opportunities for development, actively integrating with and serving the construction of the Greater Bay Area.
Strengthen the study on the strategic orientation of Yantian area and Sha Tau Kok Area in the Shenzhen Yantian Integrated Free Trade Zone, accelerate industrial transformation and upgrading. At the same time, develop Yantian District into an important eastern port of Shenzhen-Hong Kong cross border transportation under the “East in, East out, West in, West out” strategy, upgrade the level of facilitation of economic exchanges and cooperation.
2.Comprehensively improving the quality of the urban water environment. Focusing on the construction of high-quality demonstration sponge city, striving to creation of the drainage standard demonstration area and realizing full coverage of drinking water for the residents of the district.
The government will construct the sponge city with high standards, make every effort to realize that 30% of the built-up area of the Yantian District meet the standard of sponge city. And strive to take the lead in making quality drinking water into household and realizing full coverage of direct drinking water in public space. A higher-form action of improving quality of water bodies will be carried out, in order to create a diversified nature experiencing zone.
3.Continuing to promote the prevention and control of air pollution.
Vigorously develop energy conservation and emission reduction, conduct industrial waste gas treatment, implement energy transformation strategies. Promote low-carbon projects such as photovoltaic power generation, ship-to-shore power generation and LNG filling stations
4.Improving resource efficiency.
A provincial-level reform of resource cycling in Yantian Integrated Free Trade Zone will be carried out, along with accelerating the construction of LNG filling stations.
Build more charging points and improve thew management. And the effort is still need to be made to support those key energy-consuming enterprises to carry out energy-saving renovation, and vigorously pursued the Green Building and Prefabricated Building. These can enable Yantian District to continue to rank at the top of the city's energy efficiency assessment.
5.Comprehensively promoting the construction of Livable Environment. Focus on creating a world-class city of mountain and flower views, accelerating the construction of a green transportation system, and striving to create the city's cleanest urban area. Make every effort to push the development of Green Building, and strive to become the pioneer district of the creation of National Forest City.
Focusing on the goal of creating "the city's cleanest urban area" and " a world-class city of mountain and flower views ", we will comprehensively improve the quality of the urban environment in Yantian District in the areas of purification, greening, beautification, and beautification. Further polish the brand of Yantian District as a National Eco- Model Area that is "small but exquisite, delicate and beautiful", and continuously promote the development of urban management in Yantian District.
6.Accelerating the "smart Yantian" construction.
In accordance with the overall structure of "two platforms with two innovations, one portal as one center", comprehensively promote the construction of a package projects of information benefits people for smart city, strive to make Yantian District a first-class smart city model in China. The standard of Data in Yantian District is currently under discussing, accelerating the construction of a large data-sharing platform covering the whole region, with integrated utilization and unified access, to form an information resource sharing system for the whole region.
7.Promoting the upgrading of "Healthy Yantian" and strengthening the capacity of health supply and services.
Discover how to properly establish the assessment system of “Healthy Yantian”, endeavor to provide comprehensive and full-cycle health services for residents in the district. Further promotion of public medical institutions to improve and upgrade is also undergoing, along with improving the modern hospital management systems.
8.Promoting institutional and mechanistic innovations.
Further develop the practice and application of GEP mechanism in urban area on the basis of the urban GEP accounting system. Promote China's first national action plan for building an ecological civilization with a "carbon coin" service platform at its core, guiding the whole society to raise ecological awareness, practice green production and enjoy a low-carbon life.
9.Adhere to construct the district with rich cultural content, efforts to create a new brand of coastal culture.
Launch the district's national literacy enhancement campaign, widely carrying out activities to raise the public’s cultural-ethical standards, and continuing to keep the city's public civility and traffic civility indexes among the city's top. Our aim is to become an internationally advanced city for sustainable development and give the public a more tangible sense of gain before 2025.
10.Improving the efficiency of governance and strengthening services for the people.
Comprehensively improve the level of service and continuously push the reforms to streamline the government, delegate power, and improve government services further. Streamlining front-end approval procedures, strengthening supervision during and after the event, improving the list of powers and responsibilities and the negative list, and improving the dynamic adjustment and long-term management mechanism in accordance with the law, so as to ensure that government functions are not overstepping or lacking.