On December 4th, the Yangtze River Delta Regional Cooperation Office held a news conference in Shanghai to report on the achievements and results of the tri-province and one-city initiative in advancing the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta region over the past year since the symposium on further promoting the integration. Over the past year, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Anhui have focused on the keywords of integration and high quality, formulated and implemented the third round of the Three-Year Action Plan for Integrated Development of the Yangtze River Delta Region. They have jointly promoted 18 key cooperation projects in the Yangtze River Delta, accelerated the implementation of 10 practical projects for integrated development, and collectively advanced special actions such as improving the quality, efficiency, and reducing costs of regional logistics, building an integrated regional market, and joint protection and management of the ecological environment, striving to achieve new significant breakthroughs in the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta.

The number of cities boasting economies exceeding 1 trillion yuan ($137.58 billion) in the Yangtze River Delta grew from 6 in 2018 to 9, accounting for more than one-third of the national total.

The Yangtze River Delta region jointly builds the new energy vehicle industry chain system, promoting the development of connected vehicles and intelligent connected vehicles. Currently, four out of every ten new energy vehicles produced nationwide come from the Yangtze River Delta region.

The "Super Loop" high-speed rail in the Yangtze River Delta has been opened, with the operational mileage of high-speed rail exceeding 7600 kilometers, an increase of over 80% compared to 4150 kilometers in 2018. The 163-kilometer Shanghai-Suzhou-Huzhou high-speed railway is set to be operational by the end of the year, reducing the travel time from Shanghai to Huzhou from about 2 hours to approximately 40 minutes. Additionally, the airport link line connecting Hongqiao International Airport and Pudong International Airport will also be put into operation this year. With a total length of 68.6 kilometers, the connection between the two airports can be completed in as fast as 40 minutes, greatly shortening the spatial and temporal distance between key cities in the Yangtze River Delta.

From January to October this year, the average proportion of good air quality days in the Yangtze River Delta reached 83.3%, an increase of 8.2 percentage points compared to the same period in 2018. 

Source: Anhui Daily