Beihai Park
In July 2010, as per requirements for Beijing's administrative division adjustment, the new Xicheng District was formed by combining previous Xicheng District and Xuanwu District. The new Xicheng belongs to one of the two core functional districts of Beijing, covering an area of 50.7 square kilometers, and incorporating 15 subdistricts and 259 communities. There were 1.137 million permanent residents by the end of 2019.
As a core functional district of Beijing, Xicheng enjoys the privilege of being the national political, cultural and international exchange center. Meanwhile, the district is essential for famous historic cultural city preservation and an important window to display the capital's image.
Xicheng enjoys abundant administrative resources. Xicheng is where lie administration offices of a number of party and top government apparatuses, including the CPC Central Committee, National People's Congress, State Council and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). Thus it is the major venue for top-level national foreign exchange events. Altogether, there are 120 central units above vice-ministerial level within the district.
Xicheng enjoys salient strength in financial sector. As per Beijing's urban general planning, the financial street block in Xicheng is positioned to be the center for national financial management. The financial street incorporates a number of financial elements such as People's Bank of China, China Banking Regulatory Commission and China Securities Regulatory Commission, headquarters of large-scale financial corporations, major financial infrastructure, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, The Silk Road Fund and the Asian Financial Cooperation Association.
Xicheng is profound in its cultural foundation. As the birthplace of ancient capital Beijing, Xicheng enjoys abundant cultural foundation. It is the district where various cultures blend cohesively together: imperial city culture, culture of aspiring to officialdom, folk culture and religious culture. Moreover, Xicheng owns 18 historic and cultural conservation sites including Shichahai and Dashilanr, 184 cultural relic protection sites of all levels and 134 projects of intangible culture heritage preservation. In addition, Xicheng boasts a number of top-notch modern cultural facilities and art troupes such as the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA), Beijing Tianqiao Performing Arts Center and National Ballet of China, making it an important district for displaying the capital's cultural uniqueness.
Xicheng boasts ample public service resources. Xicheng enjoys numerous social resources of all types including education, health care and sports, making it a leader in terms of public service in Beijing. At the same time, Xicheng leads in education in the capital. Especially as from 2014, the district was the first to launch comprehensive education reforms in Beijing, thus promoting high-quality, balanced development of district-wide education.
As per the requirements of the municipal Party committee and municipal government, Xicheng will follow a path of minimization and intensive development and continue to push forward capital function relocation and regulation. Xicheng will focus on high-quality development and make finance the leading industry and give priority to major industries including cultural science & technology and big data, as well as foster three new sectors including high-quality life service sector, health care and high-end think tank, thus creating an industry landscape featuring "one leading sector, two major ones and three ones to come". Xicheng stays committed to enhancing financial street service system reforms, and continues to improve regional business environment. The district government has mapped out Several Measures on Supporting Beijing's Fin-Tech and Professional Service Innovation Demonstration Area (Xicheng), short for "Ten Measures for Fin-Tech", and Several Opinions on Speeding up Financial Industry Development in Xicheng, short for "Ten Opinions for Financial Service" to promote accelerated construction of "Fin-Tech New District", so as to better serve the building of National Financial Management Center.
Xicheng adopts a fine urban management approach featuring "issues arising from street side will be responded by relevant government authorities immediately". There will also be physical comprehensive law enforcement platforms along the street to complement long-term mechanism of street and alley chief and river chief. Xicheng has also launched campaigns to protect blue sky, preserve green water and eradicate prominent issues. At the same time, the district has implemented the "Making Space for Green"program and has built many pocket parks in places like Linpuyuan Urban Forest and Dongfushou Lane Pocket Park for its residents, striving to improve the district's urban eco-environment.
Centering on providing security and addressing livelihood issues, Xicheng follows a principle of "No School Should Be Left Behind and Everyone Deserves a Shot for Success", and keeps consolidating its strength in basic education and further promotes balanced development of quality education. Moreover, Xicheng has enhanced its effort to build an integrated grassroots-level public health management system and explored new ways to facilitate medical treatment alliance cooperation. Furthermore, Xicheng government has further advanced its reforms for national home-bound and community-based elderly care service, explored a five-in-one elderly healthcare service mode featuring "prevention, treatment, rehabilitation, nursing and hospice care", and promoted building of nursing institutes and care centers. Apart from that, Xicheng continues to drive renovation for its shanty town areas, coordinates overall regulation of its old and dilapidated neighborhoods and keeps improving living conditions for its people.
Xicheng government is dedicated to improving its public cultural services, catering to its people's needs and continuing to drive the building of a civilized urban district. Moreover, Xicheng is committed to further promoting its socialization reforms for public cultural services, carrying out projects that benefit the people, organizing a series of cultural activities participated by its residents and thus enriching the public's cultural life. Meanwhile, the "Reading Xicheng" program has been carried out to create various forms of characteristic reading space for its people. Xicheng also dedicated itself to preserving and reinvigorating its old town area, and has carried out "Four Famous (famous cities, companies, people and landscape)" wisdom-pooling scheme to enhance protection mechanism for its old town area. Furthermore, Xicheng government has mapped out development policies for cultural industry and encourages the development of cultural and creative parks and business.
In a bid to provide targeted poverty alleviation, Xicheng government has set up a joint working group mechanism and walked extra miles to conduct field studies in those needy places. Xicheng government has finalized poverty alleviation projects in seven key fields for five matched counties in need, and they are Zhangbei County, Fuping County, Harqin Banner, Oroqen Autonomous Banner and Nangqian County (Harqin Banner has been lifted out of poverty as of 2018). Xicheng is committed to providing financial poverty relief, promoting effective match between places with financing needs and those with financial resources, and carrying out action plan of ten thousand companies working with ten thousand villages to make sure no village is left behind.
As the core functional zone of capital Beijing, Xicheng's economy is a modern service-oriented one mainly featured by headquarters economy as the foundation, finance as the driver, and hi-tech and cultural creativity as buttress.
In 2019, Xicheng's district GDP exceeded CNY 500 billion, gaining 6.1% yearly growth. Its revenues in general public budget totaled CNY 43.11 billion, recording an annual increase of 0.1%. The district's per capita disposable income was CNY 88,000, achieving 8.1% growth year-on-year. Moreover, Xicheng's registered urban unemployment rate was 0.88%. Furthermore, the district-wide fine particulate matter (PM2.5) annual mean concentration index dropped to 44 ug/m3, recording a 17% drop compared with last year.