The Sanjiangkou area in Ningbo. Today, a front-page feature highlights how this port city, nestled by rivers and facing the sea, is steadily advancing on a new journey of high-quality development, powered by innovation and underpinned by openness. The full text follows.
The Tides of Ningbo's Sanjiangkou The surging spring tide arrives from the East China Sea, rushing through a broad river estuary to the confluence of three rivers in a bustling metropolis. In its ebb and flow, it churns and surges, creating the unique rhythm of this city.
Sanjiangkou is a significant landmark of Ningbo City in Zhejiang Province. Here, the Yongjiang, Yaojiang, and Fenghua rivers converge before flowing eastward into the sea. Locally, it enjoys the reputation of "Old Bund." In ancient times, this area was a hub of maritime activity with thriving water transport, laying the foundation for Ningbo's development as a port city. Since the reform and opening-up era, the Sanjiangkou vicinity has grown increasingly prosperous, becoming the city's core area where history and modernity reflect each other and river culture meets ocean tides. It is widely regarded as a barometer reflecting Ningbo's economic performance.
Standing at Sanjiangkou and observing the majestic convergence of the three rivers, one can feel the boundless tidal surge shaping and propelling the city forward. The tide represents a direct, vital, and unceasing force.
Strolling among the high-rises and bustling traffic along the riverbanks, the first palpable "tide" one encounters is the "human tide" – the convergence of people. This flow of people is constant from morning till night. In the early hours, elderly residents walk their dogs at a leisurely pace, while office workers hurry in and out of various office buildings. By evening, tourists from various places head towards popular photo spots with their phones, and young people gather in small groups, entering the array of bars and dessert shops in the riverside commercial districts.
In one restaurant, a local resident, Ms. Li, holding a menu, mentioned that this year she has had to take a number and wait for a table on each visit, a situation rarely seen in previous years. This robust "popularity" underpins the vibrant vitality of Ningbo's consumer sector. Data shows that in the first quarter of this year, Ningbo's total retail sales of consumer goods reached 138.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 3.9%. During the Spring Festival holiday alone, 50 key monitored sample enterprises in Ningbo achieved combined sales of 911 million yuan, up 12.5% year-on-year.
Venturing deeper into the streets and alleys of Sanjiangkou, one becomes immersed in a more dynamic "tide" – the "new tide" of bustling market activity. From large-scale "anime and comic communities" to trendy toy stores with diverse categories, a walk around Sanjiangkou reveals a concentration of the latest fashionable commercial elements. From exchanging collectibles to attending anime-themed dance parties, various fashion enthusiasts can find spaces tailored to their interests at Sanjiangkou.
Chen Jie, Chief Economist of the Ningbo Municipal Commerce Bureau, stated that "innovation" has been a key term for the high-quality development of consumption in Ningbo since the start of the year. This year, Ningbo is further accelerating the layout of high-energy-level flagship stores by leveraging its core commercial districts, promoting deep integration of commerce, culture, tourism, and sports in consumption scenarios, and using "IP" to stimulate market vitality in consumption models, thereby revitalizing time-honored brands and cultivating domestic trends.
Naturally, behind this "new tide" of consumption lies Ningbo's surging "tide of innovation." As a major manufacturing hub, Ningbo's pace of manufacturing innovation has accelerated since the first quarter. Many local industry professionals note that at the start of the "16th Five-Year Plan" period, they have developed a deeper understanding and reflection on the concept of the "new tide."
Not far from Sanjiangkou, the Zhejiang Humanoid Robot Innovation Center Co., Ltd., established less than three years ago, recently launched its first customized "NAVIAI Retail Capsule." This capsule is designed for smart retail scenarios and boasts functionalities like intelligent product guidance, tablet ordering, autonomous item retrieval, and smart explanations. Integrating several new technologies from the embodied intelligence field, it achieves "zero recognition errors in grasping items." Xiong Rong, Chief Scientist of the company and a professor at Zhejiang University, believes that technological development should not be a closed-door pursuit of parameter metrics driven solely by technology. Instead, it should be "scenario-driven," identifying problems in real-world settings, solving them with core technologies, and building capabilities through practical implementation. "The goal isn't novelty for its own sake; we must see the 'people' behind the 'new.' Technology should serve every vivid moment of interaction," Xiong said.
Named after the Yong River, one of the three rivers, the Yongjiang Laboratory is a new type of research institution located in Ningbo. In January this year, its Advanced Intelligent Materials Research Center held a launch ceremony. "Intelligent materials are at a critical stage transitioning from scientific exploration to engineering application," said Cui Ping, Director of Yongjiang Laboratory. She emphasized the future need to further bridge the innovation ecosystem involving government, industry, academia, research, and application, connecting basic research, technological development, and industrial application. "Ningbo, with its increasingly mature intelligent manufacturing sector, has advantages in this area. We should have the confidence to lead the 'trend'," Cui added.
The longer one listens to the tides at Sanjiangkou, the more one can discern the underlying surge that supports Ningbo's "human tide" and "new tide": the millennia-old, enduring "tide of openness" inherent to this port city. Since ancient times, the Sanjiangkou area has served as a maritime hub for China's coast and even East Asia. As one of the starting points of the Maritime Silk Road, ships laden with silk, tea, and porcelain set sail from Sanjiangkou for the world as early as the Tang Dynasty.
Today's Sanjiangkou gathers people and goods from across the globe. Stepping into any roadside café, one might see "people of all skin tones and hair colors." Ningbo natives, known for their love of local seafood, now also favor lobsters from North America and mud crabs from Bangladesh. The slogan "Globally Sourced, Fresh in Ningbo" is deeply ingrained in the local retail industry.
In the first quarter, Ningbo's foreign trade scale hit a record high for the same period. According to Ningbo Customs statistics, the city's total import and export value reached 369.38 billion yuan, a 5.9% increase compared to the same period last year. Exports were 243.69 billion yuan (up 2.5%), and imports were 125.69 billion yuan (up 13.1%). Amid external challenges, Zhejiang Province also posted strong foreign trade results for the first quarter: imports and exports exceeded 1.38 trillion yuan, growing 7.1% year-on-year, demonstrating the resilience and strength of a major provincial economy.
Behind this hard-won "report card," Han Jun, Deputy Director of the Ningbo Municipal Commerce Bureau, expressed deep感受. "We are implementing targeted measures to make foreign trade entities 'stronger'; seizing opportunities to 'widen' the paths for market expansion," Han said. "We encourage leading enterprises to play a pivotal role, driving the entire industrial chain to explore markets together; we continuously leverage private enterprises as the main force, further optimizing services and expanding their ranks; we support specialized, sophisticated, and innovative enterprises in utilizing their technical advantages for faster growth, becoming new sharp forces in enhancing foreign trade quality."
It is reported that by 2026, Ningbo aims to support enterprises' participation in over 100 key exhibitions, focusing more efforts on emerging markets like ASEAN, the Middle East, Central Asia, and Africa. The city will also implement an "Automobile Export" escort action, leveraging its automotive parts industrial base to support companies in transitioning towards high-end intelligent equipment and expanding exports of automobiles and smart machinery. More practical measures are underway.
Li Zhigang, Deputy Secretary-General of the Ningbo Municipal Government, stated that this year Ningbo will persistently execute a combination of policies for "stabilizing, expanding, adjusting, and optimizing" foreign trade. New measures include supporting companies in participating in United Nations procurement, facilitating the issuance of over 30 billion yuan in specialized foreign trade credit, and underwriting over 52 billion USD in export credit insurance. The city will also encourage enterprises to insure domestic trade credit, optimize policies for integrated domestic and foreign trade, deepen the development of "livestreaming + platforms + cross-border e-commerce," and promote innovative development in service trade.
Standing at Sanjiangkou, the grandeur of history, the splendor of the present, and the aspirations for the future interweave, merge, and advance together. Ningbo, taking the pulse from the tides of its three rivers, is using innovation as its oar and openness as its sail, forging ahead on the course of high-quality development towards a broader future. The sound of the spring tide will continue to witness every growth and breakthrough of Ningbo and the wider Zhejiang region, writing the glory belonging to this city and this land.
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