Foreign Journalists Explore High-Quality Development in Daxing

By China Report ASEAN

BEIJING, Sept. 24, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- On September 19, a foreign journalists' tour themed "High-Quality Development at the New Border Gate," which was hosted by the Center for Asia-Pacific under the China International Communications Group, took place in the Daxing District of Beijing. A delegation of 19 journalists and vloggers from the United States, Japan, South Korea, Brazil, Myanmar, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, and the Philippines visited a number of representative industrial parks of high-quality development in Daxing, including the Daxing Biomedical Industry Base, Daxing International Hydrogen Energy Demonstration Zone, and Daxing International Airport Economic Zone.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the implementation of the strategy for the coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, and the 5th anniversary of Beijing Daxing International Airport. The Daxing District has seized the opportunities to explore an open economic development model with pioneering and innovative thinking. It has been committed to building not only a world-class modern international airport economic zone, but also a medical and health industry cluster, as well as a hydrogen energy industry demonstration zone.

The delegation's first stop was the Zhongguancun Medical Device Park at the Daxing Biomedical Industry Base. Committed to building a world-class medical device innovation and entrepreneurship center, the park has attracted a great number of high-end medical device companies to set up offices. The journalists mainly visited the Huake Precision Medical Technology Co., Ltd.

Huake Precision concentrates on the R&D, production, and technical services of high-end medical devices such as neurosurgical continuum robots. It is a Chinese leading enterprise of innovative neurosurgical medical equipment. Over the past six years of operation in Daxing Biomedical Industry Base, the company has witnessed improvements of the Industry Base in services, spatial environment, and business policies. According to Several Measures of Daxing District for Boosting the Medical and Health Industry, the district will pay a lump sum of 3 million yuan of financial support for each license of the three types of medical devices that have passed the national special examination procedure for innovative medical devices and the projects that have obtained the medical device registration certificates for commercial production within three years. Huake Precision boasts a number of products that have obtained this support. A person in charge said that the policy has been an important incentive for his company to attach importance to original innovation.

During the visit, Myanmar journalist Si Thu Tun inserted a slender catheter into a model human skull to experience a neurosurgeon using the MR-guided laser ablation system to treat a patient with epilepsy. Other journalists were also quite interested in the procedure. They took over from Si Thu Tun and created short videos for their social media accounts.

"I'm quite impressed with the eye-opening visit today, especially China's cutting-edge medical technology," said Indonesian journalist Antony Hardi. "Indonesians tend to travel to Singapore and Malaysia for better medical services. The two countries have thus developed 'medical tourism' projects. I think China's medical technology is on a par with them, and it's feasible for more Indonesians to come to China for healthcare treatment."

In contrast to medical device enterprises such as Huake Precision, Zhima Health, a new sub-brand of Tongrentang—a top producer of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in China, has explored another development path for the medical and health industry. Established in 2019 in the context of the internet and the Internet of Things, Zhima Health is committed to enhancing the influence of TCM-based health concepts among the young people and exploring a healthy market for young consumers. TCM-based food and beverages were on sale at the Tongrentang Zhima Health No.0 Store located in the Daxing Biomedical Industry Base. The visiting journalists showed a strong interest in a coffee with barbary wolfberry and a Napoleon cake with spine date seeds and poria cocos. Philippine vlogger Char even bought a bottle of "good-night water"—a healthy drink with TCM formula.

Under the guidance of the No. 0 Store staff, the journalists experienced making sachets with a variety of seasonal medicinal herbs. Noilublao Kongpob, a vlogger from Thailand, found it fun to make sachets. "This is a combination of the TCM culture with modern aesthetics," he observed, "Wearing sachets is similar to wearing perfume. If I have more time in the future, I would like to visit Daxing again to share even more with my friends in Thailand."

After completing the visit to the Daxing Biomedical Industry Base, the delegation arrived in the Daxing International Hydrogen Energy Demonstration Zone, which opened in March 2022 and consists of a hydrogen exchange center, a hyper hydrogenation station, an incubator, and an office space. Driven by the "dual carbon" goals and the aspiration to build the district into one with industrial strength, Daxing has prioritized the development of hydrogen energy in its industrial layout. The journalists were quite interested in the hydrogen energy vehicle and hydrogen energy filling station on display. They asked a lot of questions about their R&D progress and prospects, as well as the cost of hydrogen energy vehicles in comparison with fossil fuel vehicles. 

Shortly before this tour, Si Thu Tun visited a hydrogen energy enterprise in Xinjiang's Hami Prefecture. Therefore, he was particularly excited about this event. "I saw a number of machines and vehicles driven by hydrogen today," he said, "and I was informed that other than water, hydrogen can be extracted from livestock waste. I'm delighted to see that China is vigorously developing the hydrogen technology and putting it into trial use at different locations."

Nguyen Thi Thanh Thanh, a vlogger from Vietnam, said that the exhibition of the hydrogen energy industry had impressed her the most. "I knew about hydrogen as a new energy, but I was not aware that it could be applied in so many scenarios," she remarked. "Besides, Daxing had been known to me for its new airport, not for its advanced industries, such as medicine, energy, and robots. The visit today has been rewarding."

At the end of the tour, the delegation visited the Daxing International Airport Economic Zone to get an overview of its development. Over the last five years since the opening of the Daxing International Airport, the economic zone has brought into full play the overlapping preferential policies for the zone to be built into "an airport economic zone, a free trade pilot zone, and an airport comprehensive bonded zone," aiming to build a high-level opening platform for the coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. In the future, the economic zone will continue to promote the building of a world aviation city and upgrade the high-quality development in Daxing to a new level.

source: China Report ASEAN