Respected Mr. Mayor,

Ladies and gentlemen, let me deliver my greetings to you all!

Beijing is a world famous city of histories and it has its unique local culture. Beijing has been attracting foreign friends from all over the world for its profound cultural resources. As a compatible and tolerant city, Beijing carries dreams of innumerable people. As more and more people gather in Beijing, this historical city has become an international metropolis with a population of over 17 million.

What are necessary elements for the development of a city? What is the soul of a city? Beijing is the flag of China, and it represents the political, cultural and information center of China. This reminds us a common saying cited by many people: the more national, the more international or global. At the Shanghai Expo, more than 100 countries from the world will present us what is the essence of their national culture. In the world, Beijing usually stands for China. Then what can represent Beijing? In many people’s minds, Tiananmen, the Imperial Palace, the Temple of Heaven, the Great Wall…， such well-known historical and cultural relics are symbols for
Beijing.

I would like to give some of my personal views on the issue of building Beijing into a world city.

  Ⅰ.Further strengthen the scientific protection of historical and cultural relics

Beijing is a historical city. Over the past 5000 years, the ancients have left a great number of cultural relics for us, and China has done a great deal of excellent works on protection of these historical and cultural relics. However, as time goes by, how to better preserve the historical and cultural relics left by our ancestors for a longer period in scientific ways has become a world challenge. It needs governors to make arrangement ahead and list it in the schedule as soon as possible and invest a reasonable amount of money on research so as to properly protect them, preserving more world class cultural heritage for Chinese nation, for Beijing and even for the world people, and such cultural relics preservation is really a great contribution! Though I myself don’t know how to do, I would like to raise this issue and hope you leaders to take into serious consideration.

Ⅱ.About the construction of tourist cultural industry in Beijing

In the government working report, Premier Wen Jiabao stressed that, “The national development and revitalization not only needs a strong economic power but also demands a strong cultural power." On the other hand, the development of cultural industry will help liberate and develop productive forces and create new economic growth points,

1. In terms of the Beijing culture, the most important thing is to preserve features, and we shall consider development on the basis of respecting and protecting histories.

We shall pay attention to preserve cultural features of historical tourist attractions and shall avoid overweight on utilitarianism. Beijing has a history of more than 3,000 years as a city and has a history of over 850 years as a capital city, and it is among the cities with most world class cultural heritage in the globe. Since China’s opening and reform, Beijing's tourism industry has been experiencing a rapid development. It is vital to keep management of tourism up with the industry’s development. Several issues form a subject worth considering for promoting healthier development of tourism and keeping the vitality of it, such as how to integrate the concept of “people first” in the tour, how to enable visitors to enjoy a lot from the culture, civilization, history, enable them to appreciate the passion, hospitality from Beijing people, and how to make visitors believe it worth visiting from their hearts, making them visit happily and leave with no regret.

As a result, when we make great efforts to promote the tourism industry, we shall deepen the reform of tourism management system, and we shall adopt scientific management. We shall give full consideration of featured cultures and shall strengthen scientific protection. We must attach importance on protection of original ecological cultural environments, avoiding the phenomena that people’s spiritual pursuit being overshadowed by reinforced concretes and traders. Only by this way can we promote the good cycle of cultural consumption.

2. About the development and production of tourist goods

Beijing has a lot of scenic spots and historical sites as well as places of historic figures and cultural heritage, Beijing culture is rich in content and abundant in forms. In terms of traditional culture, Beijing culture include the emperors’ palaces, gardens, lanes, courtyard dwellings, temples, foods, and custom features as well as shopping streets, and all these elements became the labels for the old culture of Beijing, But we can find that, in today’s tourism industry, there is a severe shortage of superior and high-quality tourist goods with Beijing features and this may certainly affect the sustainable development of Beijing cultural industry in some aspects.

When we visit the France, we usually can buy fine and exquisite bronze souvenirs of the Eiffel Tower and the Triumphal Arch. However, what we can buy at the Badaling Great Wall are all coarse and plain artworks modeling the Great Wall, at present, public generally reflected problems include the small quantity of quality tourist souvenirs with Beijing features, simple design and the low end. The reason for the problem is that Beijing tourist industry has not formed a product chain yet.

So, the government shall direct and facilitate the innovation and development of the tourist industry, promote the cooperation of enterprises with art schools and cultural innovative villages. In addition, the government shall guide the product of art works to design high-quality tourist goods so as to meet the market demands. Furthermore, the government shall motivate innovators to explore actively, support the development of innovation industry. This will not only promote cultural communication and tourist revenue, but also create jobs. It is really a way to kill two birds with one stone.

Ⅲ. The proposal concerning the construction of a large Exhibition Center inside the CBD

Beijing is an international city. By learning experiences from the world, Beijing has developed and constructed a CBD and this has added colors to Beijing City. Additionally, the construction of CBD has also provided good offices to businesses from different countries in the world. Now, the existing CBD is insufficient to satisfy more large enterprises’ needs, and Beijing has made a wise and bold decision to extend the CBD eastward. In order to provide better international conferences and exhibition services to world class enterprise, in my personal view, I believe a large world class landmark exhibition center shall be constructed within the CBD so as to satisfy needs of enterprises from different countries.

All in all, building Beijing into a world city is our responsibility conferred by the history and by the world. On the other hand, it is an imperative task, and also the historical opportunity to the contemporary people and even our pride. In face of such an important duty, we shall bravely shoulder the heavy responsibility. Though I am already 85 years old this year, I would like to contribute to Beijing because I love it! Beijing have given me so many honors and it is my pleasure of my life. I hereby give my personal views briefly only for your reference. I believe, with the leadership of Beijing Government and the common efforts of all Beijing people, Beijing City will be bound to develop into a prosperous capital!


By: Zheng Yutong
The New World Development Company Limited
Dated on: April 15, 2010