Xi Jinping pushes Xiongan to embrace science and technology to build ‘city of the future’

In a trip to Xiongan New Area, Chinese President Xi Jinping has called for the area to be transformed into an innovation hub to spark high-quality development in a project intended to take pressure off China’s capital, Beijing.During an inspection on Monday of the area in Hebei province, about 100km (62 miles) southwest of Beijing, Xi visited state-owned power company China-huaneng" class="entity-link entity-organization" data-entity-id="58447" data-entity-type="organization">China Huaneng and a local school, Xinhua state news agency said.00:54China’s new megacity Xiongan takes shape near Beijing with residential area ready by summer 2023China’s new megacity Xiongan takes shape near Beijing with residential area ready by summer 2023At a forum, Xi said the area should be “driven by reform and innovation”, must push for the construction of a technology park and apply more science and technology to its development.He said there must be an effort to promote emerging and future industries and insisted that local government “boldly explore and pilot trials” to ensure innovative policies in areas such as technology and finance are implemented first.However, Xi praised the overall project and said construction in the area was on track.“It is proven that the Central Committee’s decision to establish the Xiongan New Area is entirely correct,” he said.He also pointed out that the function of the area was to help decentralise the capital and absorb projects non-essential to Beijing, including some state-owned companies, universities, hospitals, financial and research institutes.