Developing China Sustainably
September 13, 2007
Located 135 kilometres east of Bejing, Tangshan is an important centre of heavy industry. The port is currently being developed into a container port and industrial park.
The "Caofeidian Deep Water Port" is being built by reclaiming marine land around the Caofeidia islands. The industrial park will house large iron and steel plants, chemical projects and electricity works -- Tangshan's most important industries.
Klaus Zillich, a professor at the University of Technology in Berlin, who is involved in the project, explained that the Chinese government chose this location because of the "unique situation of these several small islands located off the shore of the waterfront which reaches down to a depth of 24 to 28 metres."
Most important port
Other famous ports in China such as Dalian, Hongkong or Shanghai only go down to a depth of 10 to 13 metres. According to Zillich, the Caofeidian Deep Water Port will be China's most important harbour in the future.
It will have 76 berths and a capacity of 500 million tons for container shipping. For this reason, it has also be called a "Diamond-Class" port. Another reason for choosing these islands, Zillich added, was safety when there are typhoons:
"Carfaidioan is perfectly situated in the inner side of the land and protected by all these dimensions and with this fantastic deep water situation," Zilich said.
The distance from Tangshan city to the Caofeidian Deep Water Port, named after the Caofei palace which was once located on one of the islands, is only 60 kilometres. And so the city hopes to benefit from the new industrial park.
Industrial architecture
Apart from the development of ports, urban and industrial architecture was also a major theme of "Country Focus: China". German businessman Clemens Birkenroth presented projects from Qingdao. His company, the German Service Center for Small and Medium Sized Enterprises, is involved in the efforts to promote sustainable urban development in the east Chinese city.
"We are not only looking for investors," he explained. "We also want to make investors aware of the Qingdao government’s ideas to find solutions for this area to bring back urban life with small craftsmen."
Instead of just tearing down old buildings, building new ones and forcing people to leave their neighbourhoods, the company wants to find sustainable ways of developing the urban environment.