The Qingdao rail transit industry demonstration zone, located in the city's Chengyang district, is embracing tremendous development opportunities as Qingdao is sparing no effort to revitalize and upgrade its old industrial zones and historic areas.

The national high-speed train technology innovation center is under construction in the zone. [Photo/Guanhai News]

The rail transit industry zone is one of the first functional zones set up in Qingdao. Since the CRRC Qingdao Sifang Co (formerly known as Sifang Locomotive and Rolling Stock Factory) moved to Jihongtan subdistrict in 1986, a "bullet train town" has gradually grown here.

About 90 percent of the manufacturing resources of rail transit equipment in Qingdao are gathered in the zone. It has China's first national technological innovation center - the national high-speed train technological innovation center.

The zone also boasts the only industrial cluster in China that integrates the production of high-speed metro trains, the R&D and manufacturing of key core systems of rail transit, and the collaborative innovation platform of national basic application technology.

However, as time goes by, problems of low per unit tax, low land use efficiency and low project capacities of village-level industrial parks have gradually been exposed in the zone.

A panoramic view of Chengyang district's urban area [Photo/Guanhai News]

The local government has been ramping up efforts to upgrade infrastructure, improve industrial spatial structure, advance the efficient use of land, promote green upgrading in key industries and introduce more high-quality high-tech projects to fuel the zone's development and rejuvenation.

Since the implementation of the urban renewal project, a total area covering 1.17 million square meters have been demolished in the zone, among which about 586,667 sq m of land will be building area and 800,000 sq m of land will be used for industrial development.

According to government officials, the zone will undergo major renovations over the next three years in an effort to continuously improve both the quality of life for residents and the competitiveness of industrial development.