Abstract: The International Green Model City (IGMC) Pilot - Liuyang National Economic & Technological Development Zone was founded in 1997, and is the first industrial park in China to be listed as an IGMC pilot project. After 20 years of development, Liuyang Economic & Technological Development Zone has established the three major industrial clusters: biomedicine, electronic information and health food. It aims to use the IGMC standards spanning across six dimensions (including spatial planning and development, basic services, economy, environment, society, and culture) to comprehensively improve the planning and construction of the park, deepen the integration of industry and city, improve public services and human settlements, coordinate urban and rural development, cultivate ecological civilization, and boost urban vitality and competitiveness, thus creating a green, high-tech, cultural new city characterized by safety, sustainability, efficiency, equality, identity, prosperity and happiness.

Administrative Committee of Liuyang National Economic & Technological Development Zone

Introduction to the Pilot

"Liuyang Economic Development Zone" was founded in 1997, 35 kilometers from downtown of Changsha and 15 kilometers from Changsha Huanghua International Airport. In October, 2006, with the approval of the National Development and Reform Commission, it became the first national bio-industrial base in the central and western regions and in October, 2010, approved by the Ministry of Science and Technology, it became the first national innovative drug incubation base in the central and western regions. In March, 2012, it was approved as a national economic and technological development zone by the State Council. In 2016, it became the only national new-type industrial demonstration base for electronic information in Hunan Province and was selected National Transformation and Upgrade Demonstration Development Zone of the Yangtze River Economic Belt. In 2017, Liuyang Economic Development Zone officially joined the IGMC initiative, becoming a "Global Partner of IGMC" and the first domestic industrial park to be included in the pilots of the IGMC. In October, 2018, it was awarded the title of Green Industrial Park of Hunan Province.

After 20 years of development, Liuyang Economic Development Zone has formed three major industrial clusters featuring biomedicine, electronic information, and healthy food. It is home to Hunan Experimental Animal Center, Assessment Center for Food and Drug Safety, Service Center for Electronic Information Industry and other high-end industrial service platforms. It is an important driving force in the development of Hunan's electronic information and biomedical industries. Covering an area 18 square kilometers, with a population of about 150,000 in the planned area, Liuyang Economic Development Zone has more than 870 registered companies of various types, including five A-share listed companies, namely Erkang Pharmaceutical, Yonker Environmental Protection, Lens Technology, Yanker Shop Food, Hunan Jiudian Pharmaceutical Company, and four NEEQ (National Equities Exchange and Quotations) listed companies. In 2017, it ranked first in terms of comprehensive strength among 134 industrial parks in Hunan Province.

In August, 2017, Liuyang Economic and Technological Development Zone officially joined the IGMC Initiative, becoming the "Global Partner of IGMC" and the first domestic industrial park included in the pilot projects of the IGMC. With the introduction of IGMC standards, it begins with six dimensions including spatial planning and development, basic services, economy, environment, society and culture to fully enhance the quality and sustainable development of the park planning and construction. With further industry-city integration, public service and human settlements improvement, urban and rural development coordination as well as eco-civilization construction, it aims to fully enhance the vitality and competitiveness for a model city that centers around green technology and culture, which features safety, sustainability, efficiency, equity, identity, prosperity and happiness, contributing to China’s green development and new-type urbanization.

 Listed company Yonker Environmental Protection (right)

The Administration Committee of the Economic Development Zone has supported and cared about the development of the IGMC pilot. With the coordination of the Planning and Construction Bureau, the relevant departments and the IGMC expert group, the initial work reaped achievement. They collected and analyzed a large amount of construction data, delivered a full set of technical manual of IGMC Standards 3.0, carried out three seminars of field surveys, and organized an on-site training of IGMC Standards. Based on this, according to the rating system of IGMC Standards, combined with the collected data, the expert group evaluated and analyzed the status quo, and compiled the Report of Liuyang Economic and Technological Development Zone IGMC Pilot Status Evaluation for the reference of the Administration Committee and the coordination group of the IGMC pilot. It also provided a research basis for the introduction and implementation of IGMC Standards and the compilation of the Sustainable Action Plan of IGMC Pilot for Liuyang Economic and Technological Development Zone.

Based on the situation and a preliminary examination, the report conducted a SWOT analysis of sustainable development of the IGMC pilot and put forward ten preliminary recommendations, including the basic principles for the implementation of IGMC Standards, that is guided implementation in the whole region and the leading implementation of the new development area, to bring out its strengths to make up for its weaknesses and to achieve balanced development and high-quality sustainable development.

The report also proposed that the next stage of work should focus on the preparation of the Sustainable Action Plan of IGMC Pilot for Liuyang Economic and Technological Development Zone, i.e. based on the results of the assessment and analysis, there will be an organic integration of the IGMC Standards and the local conditions to improve the standard introduction strategies, compile implementation measures, planning guidelines and personalized indicator systems. As a result, a set of scientific and systematic implementation plans will be made to provide operable guidance for pilot planning and construction.

We have been insisting on the transformation from an industrial park to a new industrial city, from a general industrial park to a national first-class industrial park surrounding the urban area of Changsha. We are seizing opportunities brought by the master plans revisions of Changsha and Liuyang, and the IGMC pilot construction to realize the transformation and upgrading of the park.

We will focus on the infrastructure construction to comprehensively promote the management of rain and sewage mixed flow. The Administration Committee has formulated the plan of pipeline network improvement, which clarified that rainwater discharge should be based on the principle of scattered and nearby discharge, and adopted a combination of infiltration and drainage to improve the construction of drainage facilities in the industrial park and accelerate the construction of sewage treatment plant and trunk pipelines in the north of the park. We comprehensively renovated and cleansed the existing pumping stations and sewage pipelines, and sped up the diversion of the rain and sewage pipelines of enterprises. Leaders of the Administration Committee contacted key enterprises and urged them to complete internal rain and sewage diversion and reconstruction. We fully implemented the drainage permit system to regulate drainage management. As for the rain and sewage mixed flow in areas, rain and sewage diversion have been completed after investigation and improvement of important municipal nodes such as Jian'an Avenue and Kangyi Road. In 2018, the Committee supervised the reconstructions of four drainage outlets, assisted seven enterprises in formulating rainwater and sewage mixed-flow reconstruction schemes, and checked the reconstruction projects of eight enterprises. We built five new drainage wells, improved 25 ones, cleaned 35 ones and constructed drainage pipes in a total length of 1243.5 meters.

With the aim of sustainable spatial planning and development, IGMC Standards have been applied and implemented gradually in the Zixing Business Plaza and Smart Center project. Taking the Zixing Business Plaza as an example, the visually active frontage segment boasts more than five street shops and pedestrian entrances per 100 meters on average; pedestrians and vehicles are separated, rainwater is collected for recycling, and better connected with surrounding facilities. The Smart Center project was notable in terms of block scale and road network density, environmentally-friendly and energy-efficient buildings, and roof greening, all of which are in line with the concept and basic requirements of IGMC Standards.

Green development has been given priority. In October, 2018, the Hunan Economic and Information Commission announced the second list of green factories and green industrial parks in Hunan Province. The Economic Development Zone was enlisted, the only park on the list in the province. The Economic Development Zone will continue to give full play to its polices, guiding industrial enterprises to increase their investments in energy-saving and emission reduction technological transformation, encouraging them to eliminate backward production processes and products, supporting them to develop new technologies, new equipment and new products for energy conservation and environmental protection, and expanding the green manufacturing system in the entire region for green production and a green lifestyle.

Room for Improvement in the Pilot

Based on the evaluation results of the IGMC online evaluation system (http://cn.igmci.org/), the Liuyang Economic and Technological Development Zone scored higher in the following three dimensions, i.e., economy, society, and culture. The score of the environmental dimension was close to 50%, indicating certain advantages in this respect. However, spatial planning and development and basic services scored low, especially the basic service dimension, which scored less than 1/3, with great potential for improvement.

The current block areas of the park are too large, 12 hectares (350x350 meters) on average, with the smaller ones about 3 hectares (178x178 meters), and the larger ones, 35 hectares. Based on local conditions, factory blocks can be larger but a people-centered approach should be taken into consideration in the development of neighborhoods and business districts suitable to the local conditions. Newly constructed areas should adhere to the planning principle of small blocks and dense road networks with walkable communities and beautiful green public spaces, providing convenient and complete urban infrastructure and public services.

The sustainable use of land in the park needs to be improved urgently. The scientific zoning by industry and concentrated distribution is recommended to avoid disorder. In terms of land development model, a new-type industrial land mixed development model can be adopted to enhance the industrial vitality of the park and form a 5-10-minute life circle to improve livability. At the same time, flexible development planning can be considered with part of the land temporarily developed first and complete functional unit formed in the near future. This will quickly increase popularity and the value of the land. The functional replacement will be made in later construction to leave room for future development.

 Er-Kang Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd

Following the compact and transit-oriented development model (TOD) to avoid sprawl, the park should moderately reduce the proportion of industrial land and predict the land appreciation trend and geographical distribution to determine the development priority and timing, to avoid widely spread and mitigate stress on infrastructure investment as well as reduce the development impact on the environment. The park should increase per capita output value and land output value through innovation and investment, and vigorously develop green buildings.

Relied on the advantages of the biopharmaceutical industry in terms of industrial structure, the park can build China's healthy life laboratory and health care industry base to develop health care industry, including biomedicine, life technology, medical devices, Internet-based medical treatment, nursing robots and health maintenance, and increase product display and interactive functions. A pharmaceutical/health technology museum can be built, and an annual international forum on the pharmaceutical and health industry and product fairs can be held.

The park can focus on the development of medicine, health care and local culture, explore, preserve and promote cultural heritage and technological upgrading, including revitalization of Traditional Chinese Medicine and health care theories and techniques to underpin the development of the health and leisure tourism industries, enabling the city to define its feature.

Contributed by Administrative Committee of Liuyang National Economic & Technological Development Zone, Changsha, China, 2018