【中國(guó)日?qǐng)?bào)】Ambitious plan laid out for future of ancient portSouth China city a key location at the Belt and Road InitiativeRen Xuefeng, Party chief of Guangzhou, mapped out an ambitious plan to construct the ancient commercial port city into a new national center city with three strategic hubs in his opening speech at the Guangzhou Annual Investment Conference that opened in the metropolis on Wednesday.According to Ren, the city, one of the major starting points for the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, will become a hub for aviation, shipping and scientific innovation in the years to come."Guangzhou, a major trade port to the outside world in olden times, will try to attract more key companies to help build the city into a hub of aviation, shipping and scientific innovation," Ren said. "Scientific innovation will become a new driving force and growth engine for Guangzhou," he added.To this end, relevant departments in the city have introduced a series of preferential policies and regulations to help attract talent, capital, technologies and management from home and abroad.Ren promised to further improve Guangzhou's investment climate and living environment to better serve the city's economic construction and scientific innovation.Unique advantagesDong Qiang, chairman of China State Shipbuilding Corp, said his company will further expand its cooperation with relevant departments in the city to help build the city into a hub for the shipping industry in the following years."As an ancient port city and one of the major starting points of the China's ancient Maritime Silk Road, Guangzhou has its special and unique advantages to become a new shipping and transportation hub which needs the participants of many key companies," Dong said.CSSC will seize the opportunity to "join hands for Guangzhou's economic development."Ambitious plan laid out for future of ancient portDong said his company will invest more than 15 billion yuan ($2.3 billion) during the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-20) to construct its Longxue ocean equipment production base, located at the estuary of the Pearl River in Guangzhou's Nansha district.A new takeoff"Now that Guangzhou has mapped out its plan to become an aviation hub, China Southern Airlines and related companies will have the opportunities for a new round of takeoff in the future," said Tan Wangeng, Party chief of China Southern Air Holding Co and deputy chairman and president of China Southern Airlines.One of the three major airlines on the mainland, China Southern Airlines operates more than 100 international and regional flights every week, linking Guangzhou to major cities around the world.Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport, which handled more than 55 million passengers last year, has become the third-busiest airport on the mainland after Beijing and Shanghai.More opportunitiesOlivier Ferraton, global CEO of GL Events SA, said the French company is eager to advance its cooperation with relevant departments and expand its presence in Guangzhou."Guangzhou is an interesting city that is providing myriad business opportunities," Ferraton said.He said with the city seeking to become a new hub for aviation, shipping and scientific innovation, Guangzhou's exhibition and convention industry has great potential.Likewise, Morris Li, president of China Guangfa Bank, said the bank expects to both help promote and benefit from the city's economic construction and scientific innovation.In another development, Canada's Alberta province launched a trade office in Guangzhou on Tuesday, its fourth in China."The government of Alberta is very interested in increasing the two-way trading opportunities with China going both directions," said Deron Bilous, minister of economic development and trade of Alberta, at the opening ceremony.China is the second-largest trading partner of Alberta and Guangdong province receives more than 20 percent of Canada's exports to China, he said.Guangzhou strengthens its role as southern hubMore than 199 million yuan ($30.62 million) has been invested to help improve and expand Baiyun International Airport's environment and facilities.Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province, is expected to strengthen its status as a major aviation and shipping hub in the southern Chinese region with the coming expansion of its airport and ports.Qiu Zhizhong, deputy director of Guangzhou aviation administrative commission, said, the second terminal of Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport is expected to come into service in February 2018."The supplementary facilities for the third runway have also been completed while feasibility studies for a fourth and fifth runway have also begun," Qiu said.The construction of the second airport expressway and the related expressway projects that will help link the airport to major Pearl River Delta cities are ramping up, Qiu added.According to Qiu, Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport will be able to handle more than 80 million passengers a year by 2020.Guangzhou strengthens its role as southern hubMore than 2.5 million metric tons of cargo will arrive in and leave Guangzhou via the airport by 2020, he added.More than 199 million yuan ($30.62 million) has been invested to help improve the airport's environment and facilities, including the construction of hangars and related facilities.Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport, which currently has one terminal and three runways, is now the third-busiest airport on the mainland after Beijing and Shanghai.In 2015, the airport handled 55.21 million passengers and 1.54 million tons of cargo.The airport has 136 international and regional routes, with more than 1,000 scheduled flights linking Guangzhou to 207 destinations in Asia, Africa, Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand daily.Huang Bo, deputy director of the Guangzhou port administrative commission, said Guangzhou ports will open between eight to 10 new international ocean routes in 2016, connecting the southern metropolis to even more global destinations.While also making efforts to strengthen ties with Europe, Africa and Southeast Asia, the city is giving top priority to opening new international ocean routes to American nations and regions, Huang said.To this end, the third and fourth expansion projects for Nansha Port, located at the estuary of the Pearl River, will begin before the end of year.Ports in Guangzhou handled 520 million tons of cargo last year, up 4 percent year-on-year, ranking fourth on the mainland and the sixth in the world.Core city for innovation cooperationThe Guangzhou government has promised to expand its cooperation and exchanges with advanced countries and regions to help build the southern metropolis into a core city for the country's innovation industry in 2020.To this end, the government is now creating a number of innovation centers and industrial parks for international technological transfers, joint research and development, international innovation, incubators for offshore companies and training bases for world talents, said Ma Shu, an official with the Guangzhou bureau of science and information.Meanwhile, the construction of the city's major scientific industrial parks and projects are being accelerated. These include the Guangzhou New and High-tech Zone, Sino-Singapore Knowledge City, Pazhou Internet Innovation Zone, Nansha Mingzhu Scientific City, Guangzhou Scientific Innovation Corridor, as well as a scientific and technological city, a biomedicine island, a privately run scientific industrial park and an international innovation city."The city government is encouraging its scientific companies, scientific research institutes and research and development institutions to set up overseas companies and branches while paying great efforts to build a platform to help attract international talents," Ma told a news conference in Guangzhou on Monday.Core city for innovation cooperation"Guangzhou is expected to become a new innovation center in the mainland, offering research for innovation, technical consultancy, testing and inspection, education and training for the cities in the Pearl River Delta region as well as in other regions and Southeast Asian countries," Ma said.The city's efforts are expected to attract a number of big-name innovation companies and the formation of several important industrial clusters, he said.Relevant departments have introduced a serious of preferential policies for international talents to settle down in Guangzhou in the coming months, including housing, individual income tax, medical care, education, car purchases and training.By end of 2015, Guangzhou had registered 66 State-level engineering technology centers, State key labs and State technological innovation platforms, plus 959 provincial-level ones.The city is also home to119 incubators of local scientific and technological companies, with a floor space of more than 6.5 million square meters, up 4.25 and 3.76 times, respectively, compared with 2010.The Tianhe II supercomputer in the Supercomputing Center under the Sun Yatsen University, which is the fastest supercomputer in the world, has provided applied services for more than 660 companies and been utilized in many sectors.