The CBD of Hangzhou is the rising Qianjiang New City, whose well-known landmarks are the “Shining Sun-Moon”. The “sun” refers to Hangzhou International Conference Center, a big golden ball-shaped building; the “moon” refers to Hangzhou Grand Theater, a crescent-shaped building next to the Conference Center.

    Half a century ago, Hangzhou International Conference Center was part of the wide and wild open water of Qiantang River. Xu Mei came from Tangzhu Village, in which only 27 families made a living on fishing. She spent her childhood on a boat surging on the river. In the 1970s, the villagers got assigned a 12 mu (about 8,000 square meters) of land on the River bank and hereafter lived ashore.

    Over a million people spent more than 10 years to dig out half of the Phoenix hill, and cultivate it into 8,000 mu of farm land, enabling fishermen to move from their boats to the farms.

    Today the reclamation area has a totally different look. Since 2001 when the urban development strategy of going across the river was put forward, the New City has already become a CBD that is comparable to the core areas of international metropolitans, hosting international conferences. It is now Hangzhou’s administrative, economic and cultural center.

    Its future development as the center of Qiantang Financial Harbor is exciting as well. According to the professional data given by DTZ, one of the top five international real estate consultants, in the first quarter of this year, the average occupancy rate of Qianjiang New City is above 82%; among others, 39% of financial institutions in the city have been stationed in Qianjiang New City.

    In the future, Jianggan District is going to further promote financial innovation and to enhance finance internationalization by setting up regional financial headquarters, regional wealth management center, and the regional OTC center.