With its industrial blemish washed away, Gongshu boasts a bluer sky, clearer water and more beautiful scenery.

    Every day, this land of 87 square kilometers in the north of Hangzhou sees a desirable change.

    Gongshu, the southernmost urban district along the Grand Canal (a UNESCO World Heritage site), is turning from a busy old industrial zone into a livable, desirable city garden fit for both business and sightseeing in a long half-century transition.

    Gongshu is changing as its urban functions shift.

    To improve the eco-environment, the highest chimney in the north part of the city ended its mission in 2009, though Hangzhou Thermal Power Plant had an annual generating capacity of up to 450 million kwh.

    At the end of 2015, Hangzhou Steel Group shut down the last blast furnace burning for over 50 years in its Banshan Iron and Steel Base, terminating this base with an annual capacity of 4 million tons.

    The water quality of 46 Canal tributaries (totally 83 km) improved, and the new green areas added along the banks amount to 930,000 square meters, including nearly 90,000 meters of slow moving system in new trails and park roads, since “walking the Canal” is the citizens' favorite means of workout.

    We have renovated three historical blocks, namely, Qiaoxi Zhijie, Xiaohe Zhijie and Dadou Road, restoring more than 1000 ancient homes featuring a distinctive style of Jiangnan water towns, which is the largest group of best-preserved old houses in Hangzhou.

    Here one can find Banshan National Forest Park, transformed from a community park to a national park with a forest coverage rate of 90.1%. In the last 10 years, a new green area of 5.6 million square meters appeared in Gongshu.

    With its industrial blemish washed away, Gongshu boasts a bluer sky, clearer water and more beautiful scenery.

    In the first half of this year, the share of service sector in Gongshu's GDP reached 81.71 percent, while in 2005, it accounted for only 37%. Thirty one World Top 500 enterprises have settled here, such as French Auchan, Austrian Porsche, British Tesco, Hong Kong Hutchison Whampoa, and Greenland Group.