Every morning, 70-year-old Wang Helai and his wife stroll along the newly restored Longquan River trail near their home in Hebei Province’s Xiongan New Area. What was once a fragmented, littered dry channel is now a clear waterway lined with greenery. After the walk, they head straight to the community cafeteria in their compound, where meals are tailored for seniors and offer discounts for those over 60. Their daughter, who runs a nearby gym, often volunteers in the community.

For the family, education, healthcare, shopping, and recreation are all within a 15-minute radius. This seamless "15-minute life circle" captures how Xiongan has transformed daily living for ordinary residents, turning a planned city into a truly livable home.

The area's ongoing transition into a modern city has been underscored by Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Xiongan on Monday, where he inspected key sites, including the start-up zone, China Huaneng Group's relocated operations, and the Xiongan campus of Beijing No. 4 High School, and chaired a symposium on further advancing the high-quality construction and development of the area.

During his visit, Xi urged building Xiongan into an innovation hub in the new era and a model of promoting high-quality development.

Relocation as the core driver

Xiongan's primary role remains to carry out Beijing's non-capital functions in an orderly manner. Over the 14th Five-Year Plan period, the area completed cumulative investment exceeding 1 trillion yuan ($145.5 billion), achieved average annual GDP growth of 17.1%, developed nearly 215 square kilometers, and constructed more than 5,300 buildings.

In 2026, the start of the 15th Five-Year Plan, the focus has shifted to elevating overall capacity. The first batch of market-oriented secondary subsidiaries from central enterprises has settled, with additional groups, such as State Power Investment, accelerating integration.

A concrete example of this progress is China Huaneng Group. Over 1,000 employees from Huaneng's headquarters and affiliated units have already entered routine daily office life and operations in Xiongan since their official relocation in October 2025. This smooth transition illustrates how policy support and on-the-ground coordination are enabling large-scale central enterprises to integrate fully and sustainably.

A new wave of relocation projects is advancing, backed by targeted policy guarantees that ensure relocated personnel enjoy entrepreneurial conditions, living conditions, and income levels no lower than those in Beijing, along with 278 specific Beijing-Xiongan integration measures that provide equivalent access to healthcare, education, and social services.

Building a city people want to live in

Beyond infrastructure, Xiongan prioritizes making the new area feel like home, especially for families. The Xiongan campus of Beijing No. 4 High School stands as a flagship example from Beijing's "three schools and one hospital" support project – an initiative where Beijing funds and builds one kindergarten, one primary school, one secondary school and one general hospital, then hands them over to Xiongan for operation with ongoing management and teaching support from the respective Beijing institutions.

Opened in August 2023, the campus has formed an education group that extends high-quality teaching resources across the area. Its 2025 enrollment policy prioritized children from Category-1 and Category-2 relocated units, and student numbers continue to grow steadily, while the campus operated smoothly through the 2026 spring semester.

These efforts help ensure that relocated households can settle comfortably, with children accessing familiar, high-quality education close to home.

Innovation and new quality productive forces taking shape

National policy directs Xiongan to integrate sci-tech and industrial innovation, cultivate new quality productive forces suited to local conditions, and develop the Xiongan New Area Zhongguancun Science Park at a high level.

Key 2026 milestones include the release of the Jishu data model, developed jointly by Tsinghua University and a Xiongan-based firm, trusted data spaces achieving full coverage across government, finance, and energy sectors, and an aerospace innovation competition that has attracted participants nationwide and driven the landing of frontier projects.

These advances position Xiongan as a vital node in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei sci-tech innovation hub and a demonstration zone for new quality productive forces. Construction is steadily progressing to deliver "Xiongan quality" while maintaining clear skies, green landscapes, and clean waters.