Xi'an: Marching forward to an International Metropolis

1. City Characteristics and Development Orientation

Xi’an, known as Chang’an in ancient times, is the capital city of Shaanxi Province. The city was built over 3,100 years ago, and the capital was founded 1,100 years ago. Serving as the capital of 13 dynasties successively, it is listed among the world’s top four ancient capitals with brilliant civilization, along with Athens, Rome and Cairo.

Covering a total area of 10,106.2 square kilometers, Xi’an has a permanent resident population of 12,952,907. In 2020, the GDP of the city reached RMB 1 trillion.

In January 2017, the decision that Xixian New Area was included in the jurisdiction of Xi’an City by Shaanxi Provincial Party Committee and Provincial Government injected a powerful impetus into the development of Greater Xi’an.

Centering on the “Three, Six and Nine” Objectives to Prosper the Greater Xi’an

“Three” objectives: building a moderately prosperous society in all respects.

“Six” objectives: establishing six supporting systems of “Three Centers, Two Highlands and One Hub”, namely, Western Economic Center, Silk Road Science & Technology Center, International Exchange Center, Silk Road Cultural Highland, Inland Opening-up Highland and Comprehensive Transportation Hub, on the basis of above “Three” objectives.

“Nine” objectives: solidly carrying out implementation of nine major targets in the future five years to promote remarkable improvement of economic strength, innovative vigor, opening-up level, cultural strength, transportation hub, urban function, ecological environment, people's livelihood and social governance.

2. Investment Promotion Overview and Investment Environment Features

Constantly Optimized Investment Environment:

—the goal of “purifying water of Xi'an section of Wei River has been completed as scheduled; the 124km landscape avenue along south bank of Wei River has been totally completed; a batch of key ecological projects like Lao River and Meibei Lake have been implemented;

—the “Chang’an” international freight train to Europe has been put into normalized operation three times per week; Xi'an has become the first city enjoying 72-hour visa-free travel in northwest China; a total of 20 countries have established consulate and visa application center in Xi’an City.

—Shaanxi have continuously advanced the reforms of streamlining administration and delegating more powers to lower-level governments, cancelled the requirement of or delegated the power for review on 382 items, with project approval time reduced by over 50% on the average; introduced the third-party government performance evaluation mechanism, launched and innovated the “Political Moment” and “Daily Focus” programs and prepared the supervision and inspection system of “overall supervision and hierarchical coordination”.

3. Key Milestones of International Business Services

(1) In October 2022, at Fengdong New City Free Trade Zone, the Department of science and technology of Shaanxi Province, Xi'an Municipal Science and Technology Bureau, and Science and Technology Bureau of Xixian New Area jointly issued the first entrepreneurship work permit in Shaanxi. Fengdong New City Free Trade Zone has been providing employment and entrepreneurial services for foreign talents for a long time. The Free Trade Zone well applies its regional industrial specialty and focuses on international students in Shaanxi, as well as their entrepreneurial needs.

(2) In November 2022, the official website of Shaanxi Legal Service launched the section "The Belt and Road International Commercial Legal Services Platform". The platform functions as a one-stop legal service convergence (international cooperation organization, judicial organ, arbitration institution, lawyer notary institution, legal service center), law lookup (country laws, conventions and treaties, agreements and practices, foreign-related cases), consultation appointment (online appointment, online consultation), as well as other functional roles.