On August 9, more than 20 Chinese and foreign media reporters visited the demonstration zone of green and integrated ecological development of the Yangtze River Delta. The reporters were deeply impressed by a series of institutional innovation achievements and project construction highlights of the demonstration zone. Below is what the reporter from Eastday.com saw and heard during the visit.

The first stop of the day was the Planning Exhibition Hall of the Yangtze River Delta integration demonstration zone, which is located in the core area of the Watertown Living Room. The exhibition hall showcases four categories of demonstration zone highlights, including achievements in institutional innovation, ecology and environmental protection, compatibility and connectivity, innovation and development, and public services, as well as key plans for the demonstration zone.

In the Watertown Living Room, many journalists were very interested in the core green ecological space with three themed gardens, one of which showed Jiangnan Weitian (low-lying paddy fields surrounded with dykes south of the Yangtze River). Located southwest of Jinze Ancient Town of Qingpu District, the Jiangnan Weitian field display park covers an area of about 190 hectares, with a total investment of 193 million yuan. In the future, facilities such as the Jiangnan Rice Culture Centre, the Weitian Art Museum and the Rural Revitalisation Institute will be built here to present scenarios of long-standing farming and Weitian culture in real life.

At the second stop, Chinese and foreign media reporters visited Yuandang Lake, located at the junction of Qingpu district of Shanghai and Wujiang district of Suzhou. Yuandang Lake is one of the important transboundary water bodies in the "demonstration zone of green and integrated ecological development of the Yangtze River Delta". The ecological shoreline breakthrough construction in Yuandang Lake includes the Yuandang water environment treatment system, water ecology restoration and water landscape reshaping, providing a good place for people to relax. Since this year, Qingpu and Wujiang have been jointly promoting the ecological shoreline breakthrough construction (Phase III) project around Yuandang Lake, and plan to complete the remaining project within the year, so as to achieve the overall penetration of the ecological shoreline around the Yuandang Lake.

At the third stop, reporters visited the Intelligent Internet Hospital of the Yangtze River Delta. It was put into operation in 2020, increasing brand awareness of the “Digital Trunk of the Yangtze River Delta” in the healthcare field first, while exploring the digital transformation of healthcare in the Yangtze River Delta based on the principle of providing a warmer and more sustainable quality of life. The hospital’s six innovative scenarios have established a new standard of convenient digital medical treatment.“In the future, we will rely on the Healthcare Cloud platform to form a new hierarchical medical system covering “all areas, all diseases, whole courses”, and create a platform-type Internet digital healthy city,” said Hong Bin, president of the Intelligent Internet Hospital of the Yangtze River Delta.

The final stop of the tour was the Shanghai-Suzhou-Jiaxing intercity railway (Qingpu New City Station). This intercity railway connects Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang with the Hongqiao Business District in the east, Jiaxing South Station in the south, the Suzhou Intercity Railway Network and Suzhou South Station in the west, and Xiaoshan Airport at the end, making it an important piece of railway infrastructure in the demonstration zone.“The Shanghai-Suzhou-Jiaxing Intercity Railway will shorten journey times between the three cities to less than an hour,” said Wang Yang, a project manager at Shanghai Shentie Investment, which is overseeing building work on the Shanghai section.