Status Quo of Chemical Industrial Parks in Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei

Current situation of petroleum and chemical industry

In 2016, the oil and chemical industry earned 13.29 trillion yuan from its main business, up 1.7%.The total profit reached 644.44 billion yuan, basically unchanged from the previous year, accounting for 11.5% and 9.4% of the total revenue and profit of large-scale industrial enterprises in China respectively.Fixed asset investment reached 2.15 trillion yuan, down 5.9 percent and accounting for 9.4 percent of the country's total industrial investment.

In the first half of 2017, despite the elimination of outdated production capacity and increasingly stringent inspections on safety and environmental protection, market prices of petrochemical products in various regions rebounded significantly, prompting the economic indicators of the petroleum and chemical industry to perform significantly better than expected.

By the end of June, there were 28,998 enterprises above the designated size in the petroleum and chemical industry, with a cumulative revenue of 7.23 trillion yuan from their main businesses, up 17.7% year-on-year (the highest in the same period in five years).Total profit reached 432.39 billion yuan, with an increase rate of 50.3% (the highest in the same period in the past 6 years, among which the chemical industry profit increased by 30.3%, much higher than the national industry average growth of 22.0%), accounting for 12.1% and 11.9% of the total revenue and profit of large-scale industry in China respectively; fixed assets were put into production for 945.13 billion yuan, down 0.2%, accounting for 9.1% of the country's total industrial investment.

Special location features of industrial park

In the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, emerging industrial parks are not uncommon. Beijing Zhongguancun High-Tech Park, and industry bases related to software automobile, animation biology, textile and garment, steel material,ceramic industry base, etc. The list can go long.

Due to the particularity of its location, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region has also marked the brand of “Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei integration” in the layout of emerging industrial parks.In terms of geographical distribution, the number of emerging industrial parks in Beijing occupies a leading position, while those in Tianjin are mainly concentrated in Binhai New Area, and those in Hebei are mainly concentrated in Langfang, Baoding, Qinhuangdao and other areas around the capital.

At present, the layout of emerging industrial parks in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei is relatively scattered. Those in Beijing are relatively dense, while those in Tianjin and Hebei are relatively sparse and not so closely connected.

The layout of industrial parks, to a large extent, is closely related to the precision of its own positioning. For example, Langfang in Hebei province, which is the intersection of Beijing-Tianjin Industrial Belt, vigorously develops strategic emerging industries based on its superior geographical location and synergistic relationship with Beijing. Relying on Beijing, especially relying on its advantageous industries to develop itself, Langfang puts forward a way of “incubating what Beijing researches” so as to integrate into Beijing’s industrial clusters and achieve coordinated development with Beijing. At present, Langfang has formed a series of emerging industrial parks such as electronic information, modern equipment manufacturing and biological medicine.

In addition, Langfang relies on the abundant science and technology resources of universities in Beijing and Tianjin to combine production, learning and research. Tsinghua university, Peking University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences have all set up incubators in Langfang. Statistics show that 90% of science and technology enterprises in Langfang have established cooperative relations with universities and institutes in Beijing and Tianjin, and more than 500 high-tech projects and achievements are introduced every year to accelerate the formation of industrial clusters with Langfang characteristics.

Three problems should not be ignored

In recent years, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region has made some achievements in building new industrial parks, but it cannot be denied that in the process of development, some long-term constraints on the coordinated development of this region also restrict the construction and development of new industrial parks to some extent.

Some experts believe that problems in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region are different from those in the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta. First, the division of urban functions and industries is not as complete as that of the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta, and the degree of coordinated development of urban agglomeration is not higher than that of the latter two places. In addition, the industrial gap between Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei is so huge that it is difficult to form a good ecological development of emerging industrial parks. Second, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region is heavily administrated, and the lack of horizontal communication between regions leads to the serious homogenization of many emerging industrial parks. Finally, most of the park development adopts the government-led mode. Although it plays a prominent role in the early stage of development, there are many drawbacks in the later stage of construction, resulting in a series of problems, such as the underdeveloped functions of the park, insufficient supporting facilities, and unclear industrial positioning and development strategy.

To address these problems, Kuang Hongguang, Executive Vice President of Chinese Industrial Cluster Institute, suggests that building new industrial parks should use more market forces. In order to strengthen the connection among the emerging industrial parks in different regions, it is also a good way to build parks in pairs. At the same time, he stresses that joint efforts should not be just a name, but also a deeper level of cooperation.

[Policies]

Hebei has issued a policy to encourage the concentration of enterprises in industrial parks. Local governments are required to draw up special plans for the relocation and renovation of heavy polluting and hazardous chemicals producers and make them available to the public by the end of October.