I.Introduction
Huli District, established in November 1987, is the central urban area of Xiamen, situated in the northern part of Xiamen Island, facing Kinmen Island across the sea. It covers a land area of 73.9 square kilometers, accounting for 46.8% of Xiamen Island. All the "five bridges and two tunnels" connecting the island are within its jurisdiction. The district has a permanent population of 1.031 million. In recent years, it has been recognized with numerous accolades, including National Top 100 Industrial Districts, National Top 100 Innovative Districts, National Top 100 Districts for High-Quality Economic Development, National Ecological Conservation Demonstration Zone, National Model Zone for Resource Conservation and Intensive Land Use, National Health Promotion Zone, National Zone for Balanced and High-Quality Compulsory Education Development, National Zone for Universal and Inclusive Preschool Education, National Top 100 Districts for Comprehensive Tourism Strength, Provincial "Top Ten" Urban Development Districts, and Provincial Civilized Demonstration Urban Zone. In 2024, the district achieved a regional GDP of 178.23 billion yuan, with a total fiscal revenue of 28.15 billion yuan and district-level fiscal revenue of 6.02 billion yuan. The per capita disposable income of urban residents reached 74,400 yuan.
Huli District is committed to serving the construction of key nodes in the new development pattern. Its comprehensive land, sea, and air transportation network extends in all directions: it features an 8.42-kilometer coastline at Dongdu Port, with 81 international shipping routes in operation. Gaoqi International Airport currently operates 170 regular passenger and cargo routes. Multiple national-level zones—including the Pilot Free Trade Zone, Torch Development Zone for High Technology Industries, National Independent Innovation Demonstration Zone, and National Import Trade Promotion and Innovation Demonstration Zone—overlap within the district, fostering a concentration of foreign investment. The district hosts over 4,496 foreign-funded enterprises, with registered capital reaching $43.7 billion and total investment amounting to $29.2 billion. The district is dedicated to advancing the BRICS PartNIR Innovation Center, accelerating key projects such as the BRICS PartNIR Innovation Headquarters, the BRICS Digital Industrial Intelligence Valley, and the BRICS TOD Development. It plans to establish a BRICS Digital Block, explore a pilot for cross-border digital trade services with Singapore, and strives to build a demonstration model for new smart cities, a hub for the digital economy industry, an international cooperation platform for BRICS and "BRICS Plus" countries, and a base for cross-strait exchanges and cooperation. Huli District is also focused on strengthening cross-strait exchanges and cooperation. It is home to 1,612 Taiwanese-funded enterprises and nearly 10,000 Taiwanese compatriots and their relatives. The district boasts significant platforms for cross-strait engagement, including the Xiamen-Kinmen route at Wutong Wharf, the Cross-Strait Financial Center, the Straits Tourism Service Center, the Taiwanese Fruit Sales and Distribution Center, the Fujian-Taiwan Cultural Exchange Hall, and the Cross-Strait (Xiamen) Community Exchange Center. Additionally, it hosts two national-level entrepreneurship bases for young people from Taiwan and two specialized bases for Taiwanese youth.
II.Industrial Orientation: 3+2 Key Industries and Distinctive Sectors
(I)Mechanical Equipment
The district will focus on developing aviation maintenance and manufacturing as well as automotive components manufacturing. Concurrently, it will vigorously cultivate new modern service formats such as aviation leasing, aviation finance, aviation training, aviation materials trading, aviation R&D design, and aviation cultural tourism. For automotive components manufacturing, priority will be given to driving the transformation and upgrading of traditional electronic components manufacturing through intelligent transformation, accelerating the layout of sensor industry clusters, with intelligent products as the vanguard and intelligent manufacturing service platforms as the core.
Representative enterprises: Taikoo (Xiamen) Aircraft Engineering, Taikoo Engine Services, ST Aerospace.
(II).Commerce and trade
The district will focus on developing integrated circuit design, software & information services, computer & communication equipment, and new display technologies. Emphasis will be placed on key segments of the industrial chain including integrated circuit design, artificial intelligence, IP R&D, EDA development services, and key laboratories; active promotion will be given to digital service industries such as smart cities, data services, and internet platforms; sustained development will continue in fields like high-performance computing, trusted computing systems and servers, 5G communication network equipment production, and intelligent terminals; expansion efforts will target new display technologies represented by AMOLED, MiniLED, MicroLED, flexible displays, and laser displays.
Representative enterprises: TPK, Dell, EOCHIP, YUGUO.
(III)Logistics Service
The district will focus on advancing key areas including trade promotion, commercial ecosystem, and consumer demand. Capitalizing on opportunities from the import demonstration zone construction, priority development will be given to bulk trade while encouraging leading enterprises to accelerate the improvement of bulk trade network systems. For the logistics sector, emphasis will be placed on developing cold chain logistics, cross-border e-commerce logistics, urban distribution, maritime express delivery, and bonded logistics, aiming to build an international procurement distribution & transit platform, bonded exhibition and trading platform, international trade settlement and payment platform, port-proximate commodity trading center, and cruise supply base.
Representative enterprises: ITG Holding, XMXYG, C&D Corporation.
IV.Financial Services
The district will focus on developing a regional fintech center and regional sustainable finance hub, aiming to attract and cluster fintech enterprises while emphasizing distinctive development areas such as investment financing and supply chain finance, with particular concentration on key fields including fintech and green finance.
Representative enterprises: China Life, JD Digits.
V.Cultural Tourism and Creativity
The district will focus on advancing popular cultural industries led by film, television and music, thereby driving the development of related sectors including art, gaming/animation, and fashion. This initiative promotes the integration of culture, sports, tourism, and commerce, attracts high-quality cultural-tourism projects, and establishes public technical service platforms. Leveraging major projects such as the Tencent Film Technology Cultural Industry Base, Taihe Music Group Straits New Coast Music Block, China Film Archive Southern Fujian Branch, and Maritime Silk Road (Xiamen) International Film Industry Base—alongside five provincial-level cultural industry demonstration bases within its jurisdiction—the district will propel the specialized and scaled agglomeration of cultural industries. Building upon resource advantages, it will facilitate the implementation of high-quality cultural-tourism activities, sports events, and innovative vacation products.
Representative projects: Baixiang Wutong Strait New Shore, Amoy International Yacht Banquet.
VI.construction
Priority is given to the development of excellent construction enterprises, the introduction of housing building and municipal construction enterprises with special and first-class qualifications, as well as Grade A-qualified design, survey, supervision and construction-related supporting service enterprises, and the building of a construction and installation enterprise industry chain centered on large general construction contracting enterprises.?
Representative enterprises: CSCEC Fourth Engineering Bureau, CCCC Third Harbor Engineering Sixth Engineering.
III. National-Level Key Investment Spaces
(I) Cross-strait Financial Center Huli area
Project overview
The Cross-Strait Financial Center serves as a vital window for Xiamen Special Economic Zone to implement comprehensive supporting reforms, deepen cross-strait exchanges and cooperation, and exercise its pioneering role in Taiwanese-related initiatives. It also functions as a crucial platform for establishing a gateway city for cross-strait engagement and implementing the Greater Bay Area city strategy. Located in northeastern Xiamen Island, the Cross-Strait Financial Center (Wutong High-End Business District) spans approximately 3.4 square kilometers. Developed in three phases, it will be transformed into a hub with complete infrastructure and public facilities, focusing on headquarters economy and emerging financial formats. Efforts will concentrate on attracting headquarters of financial and quasi-financial institutions, regional headquarters, renowned enterprises, and internationally prominent fintech companies, with particular emphasis on establishing benchmark clusters for licensed financial institutions such as banks, securities, and insurance firms, as well as leading financial service providers.
Target sectors: Banking, securities, futures, funds, insurance, local financial organizations, financial supporting service institutions.
(II)BRICS Digital New City
With support from the CPC Xiamen Municipal Committee and Municipal Government, Huli District is collaborating with China General Technology and other BRICS Industry Innovation Alliance members to develop three major clusters: the BRICS PartNIR Innovation Headquarters, BRICS Digital Industrial Intelligence Valley, and BRICS TOD Comprehensive Development Project. Additionally, a BRICS Industry Fund with a scale of 10 billion yuan has been established to support the BRICS PartNIR Innovation Base projects.
The BRICS PartNIR Innovation Headquarters
The BRICS PartNIR Innovation Headquarters, situated within the Wutong Business Area of the Cross-Strait Financial Center, encompasses a total floor area of 262,000 square meters with an investment of approximately 5.5 billion yuan. Huli District will collaborate with China General Technology Group and other BRICS Industry Innovation Alliance members to develop the project under the principles of "consultation and joint construction" and adopt an integrated investment-construction-operation model. The main industries will be technology, culture, trade, and modern services, aiming to create a 10-billion-yuan industrial cluster and a model for global BRICS cooperation. The project is planned to be operational in the second half of 2027.
BRICS Digital Industrial Intelligence Valley
The project plans to construct three science and technology innovation Industrial parks, including the phase 1 and phase 2 projects of the BRICS Digital Industrial Intelligence Valley and the Zhonglun park, focusing on professional innovation accelerators centered on digital industry and intelligent manufacturing. The Total land area is 305,000 square meters, and the building area is nearly 1 million square meters.
BRICS TOD Integrated Development Project
As one of the districts with the highest metro station density in the country, Huli District will launch 17 TOD (Transit-Oriented Development) comprehensive development projects, five of which are part of the BRICS Digital New City. The project will use rail transit as the guide and incorporate elements from BRICS countries to introduce resources from the digital economy, digital film and television, cultural creativity, and cultural tourism and health industries, creating a "BRICS community on the metro.”
IV.Municipal-Level Key Investment Promotion Zone
(I)Xiamen Cross-Strait Integrated Circuit Industrial Park
Covering an area of 33,200 square meters and a building area of 78,000 square meters, it comprises 24 buildings and is planned to include the IC Design Business Incubator and the Xiamen IC R&D, Design and Test Center. The goal is to build a high-profile integrated circuit hub in Xiamen and become an important part of the city's one-hundred-billion-yuan integrated circuit industrial chain.
Target sectors: The park attracts enterprises engaged in IC product R&D design, high-end manufacturing, packaging and testing, transaction settlement, talent training, and other eligible integrated circuit-related businesses.
(II)Xiamen Cross-Border E-Commerce Industrial Park
Covering an area of 27,497 square meters, with a planned construction area of approximately 105,000 square meters, the project is located at the intersection of Changhong Road and Changle Road, seated at the center of a well-connected road network. Building No. 1, with a construction area of 40,000 square meters, was rebuilt into the maritime express supervision center and positioned as a logistics supply chain service base and an export e-commerce operation base in 2014. Building No. 2, with a construction area of 65,000 square meters, is planned to be a public service platform for the entire e-commerce industry chain and an integrated industrial operation base.
Target sectors:?Cross-border e-commerce, international logistics, and related supporting enterprises.
(III)Xiamen Innovation Smart Industrial Park?
The Xiamen Innovation Smart Industrial Park is a large-scale urban complex project integrating innovative smart office buildings, premium business hotels, and commercial facilities within the Pilot Free Trade Zone. Situated west of the junction of Gangdong Road and Zhaishang West Road, Phase I comprises northern and southern plots: the northern plot is designated for office buildings, supporting facilities, and the Free Trade Zone service center; the southern plot features a supporting seaview business hotel.
Target sectors:?Headquarters enterprises, shipping enterprises, trade enterprises.
(IV)Goodstone Fundtown
As Xiamen’s first municipal-level fund town, the town is located in the core area of the Cross-Strait Financial Center, with a total floor area of approximately 60,000 square meters and comprehensive business/living amenities.
Target sectors: Private securities funds, equity fund managers, private funds, equity investment enterprises.
(V)Xiamen International Cruise City
Phase I development spans approximately 47.1 hectares with a floor area of 1 million square meters. As the inaugural project of Xiamen International Cruise City, Sea World (West Bay Cruise City) has completed and operationalized 517,400 square meters (excluding the terminal), jointly developed by China Merchants Group and XMXYG. It encompasses office towers, commercial spaces, five-star hotels, serviced apartments, cultural facilities, and cruise terminals.
Sea World
Sea World—currently the largest coastal complex in the Western Taiwan Strait region—officially commenced operations on September 30, 2022. Occupying 163,200 square meters of land with 1.09 million square meters of floor area, it integrates Grade A offices, luxury shopping malls, cruise terminals, and cultural/recreational amenities.
China Merchants Shekou plans to introduce cultural industries, cruise economy, education/wellness, and residential apartments to drive industrial upgrading and urban renewal in the cruise homeport area.
Xiangyu Times Cultural Tourism City
Xiangyu Times Cultural Tourism City, with a total investment of approximately 2.3 billion yuan, covers an area of about 216,000 square meters and a construction area of about 130,000 square meters. It is dedicated to creating “a new benchmark for cultural tourism in China,” “an attraction with an annual visitor volume exceeding 3 million”, and “a destination that keeps tourists one more night”.
With an enclosed scenic area as the main body, and the Xiamen-Gulangyu Time Leisure Area and the Cruise Center Night Economy Area as the two wings, this “one body, two wings” layout of Xiangyu Times Cultural Tourism City meets the diverse leisure and sightseeing needs of tourists and citizens, providing visitors with 24-hour exciting experiences.
V. District-Level Key Investment Spaces
Smart Transportation Industrial Park
The project, situated at No. 5-11 Huatai Road in Huli District, occupies a land area of 25,400 square meters with a total floor area of 40,700 square meters (Workshops 13#-16#). It plans to attract enterprises in ride-hailing platforms, digital freight transportation, autonomous driving, smart transportation, and flexible employment platforms for related industries. The initiative will deepen cooperation in 5G and smart cities, intelligent transportation, and IoV, construct smart roads and vehicle-road coordination operation platforms, promote technological innovation, product R&D, and application deployment in Xiamen, facilitate the agglomeration of the 5G intelligent connected vehicle industry, establish a demonstration zone for the national initiative of building China into a country with strong transportation capacity, and pioneer the development of an integrated full-chain smart transportation industrial park in China.
Target sectors: Enterprises applying modern electronic information technologies (IoT, cloud computing, AI, automatic control, mobile internet) to transportation services; testing and research institutions supporting the smart transportation industry.
Huli Innovation Park
Huli Innovation Park is located in the Wuyuan Bay Area in the northeast part of Xiamen Island, with a planned total land area of 180 hectares and a total construction area of approximately 2.6 million square meters. The three main industries in the park: First, the research and development settlement industry represented by Air Jordan, 361 Degrees, and Xiamen Tungsten; second, the information technology industry represented by Yealink and Feiyu Technology; third, the creative design industry represented by Hordor Design, Vanke Cloud Design, and C&D HOLSIN Engineering Design. Currently, there are four plots of industrial land to be developed, with a total land area of approximately 29,800 square meters and a total construction area of 57,800 square meters.
Target sectors:?Software and information services, creative design, commercial trade services, R&D settlement, headquarters enterprises.
Community Development Land
There are 15 community development projects in Huli District, involving 3 subdistricts and 13 communities, namely Jiangcun Community, Caitang Community, and Houpou Community in Jiangtou Subdistrict, Zhongzhai Community, Banshang Community, Weili Community, and Fanghu Community in Heshan Subdistrict, Wutong Community, Houkeng Community, Jinhu Community, Hubian Community, Gaolin Community, and Jinlin Community in Jinshan Subdistrict. The total construction area is 1.28 million square meters and the total investment is approximately 8.33 billion yuan.
VI.Service Support Systems
I.Huli District leverages the development of two national-level major zones: the Xiamen Area of China (Fujian) Pilot Free Trade Zone and the Xiamen Torch Development Zone for High Technology Industries.
The Xiamen Area of China (Fujian) Pilot Free Trade Zone
The Xiamen Area of China (Fujian) Pilot Free Trade Zone spans 43.78 square kilometers, encompassing the Haicang Port Zone of the Southeast International Shipping Center and the core area of the Cross-Strait Trade Center.
Key Industries：International trade, aviation maintenance & manufacturing, financial leasing, shipping logistics, high-end manufacturing, financial services, cultural creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship.
The Xiamen Torch Development Zone?
The Xiamen Torch Development Zone for High Technology Industries implements a "one zone, multiple parks" strategy and was the first in Fujian Province to achieve an annual output value exceeding 100 billion yuan. Its Huli section includes Torch Park, Startup Park, Information Photo-electronic Park, and PKU Biopark. The zone demonstrates synergistic development through the "twin-engine" linkage between the National Independent Innovation Demonstration Zone and the Pilot Free Trade Zone.
Key Industries：Next-Generation Displays,Computer and Communication Equipment,Electrical power Equipment,Software and Information Serices,Semiconductors and Integrated Circuits.
II. Huli District is deeply integrated into the BRICS PartNIR Innovation Center construction, developing the BRICS Digital Block.
Located in northeastern Xiamen Island, the BRICS Digital Block represents the island’s sole contiguous development area, comprising three major sectors: the Huli section of the Cross-Strait Regional Financial Center (including the “gateway to the mainland” sector), Wuyuan Bay sector, and Hubian Reservoir sector.
The BRICS Digital Block plans to build a domestic and international BRICS dual-cycle data hub with “data” as the main line and "BRICS+" as the feature. It will establish a new model of a smart city, a cluster center of digital economy industries, an international cooperation platform for BRICS and “BRICS+” countries, and a cross-strait exchange and cooperation base. It will become an engine for the high-quality development of BRICS digital economy and a typical internationalized and modernized area featuring high-quality development and enchanting landscapes.
Key Industries：Machinery equipment, electronics information, financial services, cultural-tourism creativity.
Target sectors:Domestic and international enterprises in digital economy, data factor, artificial intelligence, big data, IoT; research institutions supporting data factor industries and BRICS sci-tech innovation cooperation; cultural-tourism creative enterprises; health and wellness services enterprises.
