On May 4, 1984, Ningbo was listed as one of the 14 coastal cities in China to further open up to the outside world. In October of the same year, the State Council approved the establishment of the Ningbo Economic and Technological Development Zone (hereinafter referred to as the "Development Zone").

With the sounding of the era's clarion call, Ningbo ushered in a period of great opening up, reform, and development...

In the summer of 1985, Jin Yiping, a student at the Guangzhou Institute of Foreign Languages, made the most important decision of his life: to abandon his allocated government job and cycle to the then "impoverished" Development Zone to join the "turbulent waves" of coastal opening up.

Forty years later, Jin Yiping spoke to a Yongpai reporter for the first time about this "shining moment" in complete detail, sharing his mental journey of breathing and sharing the fate of the era.

 

 

Video Production: Reporter Pan Miao

 

The Clarion Call

In 1984, Jin Yiping, a senior student in the Japanese Department of the Guangzhou Institute of Foreign Languages, casually opened a newspaper and read a report about Ningbo's opening up to the outside world.

 

"At that moment, a thought popped into my mind: I want to go to Ningbo, and I want to join the great cause of reform and opening up." Forty years later, recalling the moment when he "felt like he had been struck by lightning," Jin Yiping was still filled with excitement.

This was the "resonance" of a young person's heartbeat with the pulse of the era.

Jin Yiping's hometown was in Dongyang, Jinhua, where there was more land than people, and life was very difficult. Going to college was one of the few options for his generation to escape the "agricultural gate" and change their destiny.

During his college years, with the growth of knowledge and the collision of ideas, coupled with the fact that the school was adjacent to the rapidly developing Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, the "speed of the Special Economic Zone" and the "spirit of the Special Economic Zone" silently nourished the hearts of young people like Jin Yiping.

Jin Yiping's ideas unconsciously began to change: getting rid of poverty was too "small" a goal. If there was an opportunity, perhaps he could achieve something greater!

Thousands of miles away, Ningbo was also waiting for such an opportunity.

Due to its special geographical location as a coastal defense outpost and historical factors such as a large number of overseas Chinese, Ningbo had been in a closed state for a long time after the founding of New China.

In May 1984, with the care and support of the Party and state leaders and the active appeals of the "Ningbo Gang," Ningbo was listed as one of the 14 coastal cities in China to further open up to the outside world.

In October 1984, the State Council officially approved the "Request Report on the Further Opening-Up Plan of Ningbo City" and approved the establishment of the Development Zone in Xiaogang.

In October of the same year, the Third Plenary Session of the Twelfth Central Committee of the Party established "opening to the outside world" as a basic national policy.

A golden opportunity was presented to everyone...

 

After graduating from college, Jin Yiping, filled with passion, was ready to join the cause of Ningbo's coastal opening up.

 

Setting Off

In the summer of 1985, after graduating from college, Jin Yiping borrowed 60 yuan, packed his meager belongings, and set off from Guangzhou by bicycle. Mencius said, "When Heaven is about to confer a great responsibility on a person, it first makes his mind suffer, labors his bones and muscles, starves his body, and depletes his wealth." At that time, the young Jin Yiping hoped to temper his mind through this "suffering."

The road underfoot was not easy. When he cycled to Wenzhou, he unfortunately encountered a storm and only managed to travel 40 or 50 kilometers in a day. By the time he arrived in Ningbo, half a month had passed, and he had lost a significant amount of weight. "On the first night in the Development Zone, I spent the night in the health center, and it took four bottles of glucose to recover."

The "road" in his heart was even more difficult. At that time, college graduates were assigned jobs, and due to his excellent grades, he could have gone to work in a government ministry, but he abandoned the "iron rice bowl" and chose the difficult path. The department head shook his head and said, "If you go to a government ministry, you are steel; if you go to Ningbo, you are iron."

The boldness of "now taking a step forward" may make people's hearts boil with excitement, but how easy is it to truly cross the "difficulties and obstacles of the long and arduous journey"?

The "place of struggle" that Jin Yiping yearned for was at that time just a "small area" with an area of only 3.9 square kilometers - surrounded by mountains on three sides and facing the sea on one side; 18 kilometers away from downtown Ningbo, without a direct road, one had to either take a ferry from Ningbo to Zhenhai and then walk 5 miles after arriving on the opposite shore; or take a small road from Ningbo to Daqi, then climb over mountains and cross ridges along a muddy path to Xiaogang, which took two days round trip, with only one bus a day.

At the same time, the Development Zone was also facing the dilemma of "how to proceed" despite its ambition to forge ahead.

On the one hand, there was a lack of funds. The initial development area was 1.3 square kilometers, and according to state regulations, 140 million yuan in special development funds could be borrowed. However, to "build high-rise buildings on the wilderness and tidal flats," this money was undoubtedly a drop in the bucket. Jin Yiping recalled, "Just building Jiangnan Road cost 30 million yuan, not to mention land acquisition and demolition, 'seven connections and one leveling,' and other infrastructure construction."

On the other hand, there was a lack of enterprises and projects."At that time, we were young and naively thought that coastal opening up would bring many foreigners, but we didn't even see the shadow of a foreigner," Jin Yiping said. "Not only was there no foreign investment, but there were not even any projects."

Listening to the "roaring" sound of mountain blasting and leveling during the day and the "croaking" sound of frogs on Jiangxin Island at night, Jin Yiping sometimes doubted whether his choice was too rash.

At the end of 1985, Jin Yiping was sent to Beijing to "attract foreign investment." At first, he couldn't find the right approach, so he bought 60-cent packs of Marlboro cigarettes with his own money as a "stepping stone" and went to various departments to look for Ningbo compatriots.

It was not until he met a Ningbo compatriot working at the consulate that Jin Yiping realized that "to attract foreign investment, you have to go to the Ministry of Foreign Trade." "At that time, the Ministry of Foreign Trade had a small newspaper, and they suggested that I stay there, maybe I could hear some information, but the harvest was still meager."

Despite the difficulties, no one retreated.In August 1986, Ge Hongsheng, the then Secretary of the Ningbo Municipal Party Committee, put forward clear requirements at the on-site office meeting of the Development Zone: the Development Zone should be a pilot for reform in the city; the Development Zone is a new thing, and there must be innovative spirit in the reform.

Jin Yiping recalled that in 1987, the Development Zone Management Committee invited two major state-owned enterprises, China Minmetals Import and Export Corporation and China Machinery Import and Export Corporation, to "invest" in the Development Zone, with the Development Zone holding 50% of the shares and the two enterprises holding 50%, implementing joint development. "In the past, I had only heard of joint-stock systems in economic cooperation, but it was unprecedented to adopt a joint-stock system in cooperation with the government."

The joint development model not only solved the money problem but also attracted projects. This model was later called the "Ningbo Model" of development and opening up.

In 1988, the Ningbo Fuwa-Kadibai Industrial Co., Ltd., funded by the UAE, was established in Beilun, which was the first foreign-funded enterprise to settle in Beilun; in 1989, Dow Chemical invested in the establishment of Zhejiang Pacific Chemical Co., Ltd. in the Development Zone, creating a precedent for Fortune 500 companies to invest in Ningbo...

 

When Jin Yiping arrived at the then Ningbo South Bus Station, he had clearly lost a significant amount of weight compared to when he set off.

 

Acceleration

The Development Zone truly "took off" in 1992. That year, Comrade Deng Xiaoping delivered his Southern Talk. The spring breeze from the East brought new life to everything...

In 1992, with the approval of the State Council, the Development Zone was merged with the key areas of the Beilun Port Industrial Zone, expanding the area to 29.6 square kilometers, collectively known as the Ningbo Economic and Technological Development Zone. In November of the same year, the State Council approved the establishment of the Ningbo Free Trade Zone.

On March 28, 1993, the first phase of the Ningbo Free Trade Zone officially began operations. From approval to the acceptance of the first phase of the site, it took less than 100 days, and there were already more than 50 registered enterprises, with a total investment of nearly 200 million US dollars.

Statistics show that from 1992 to 1996, the Ningbo Economic and Technological Development Zone approved 443 projects, with a total project investment of 3.78 billion US dollars, contractual foreign investment of 3.1 billion US dollars, and actual foreign investment of 700 million US dollars, increasing by 3.6 times, 15 times, 20 times, and 26 times respectively compared to the previous seven years.

At this time, Jin Yiping had long overcome his initial confusion and hesitation, immersed in the joy of "accelerating." He took on the heavy responsibility of rebuilding the Development Zone's commodity business base, attracting 138 investment and management enterprises in just one year, with rapid progress in infrastructure projects covering 125,000 square meters, and orderly preparations for tourism projects...

That year, Jin Yiping was only 31 years old. With full energy and hard work... The Development Zone had created a hotbed for young people like him to achieve great things.

Jin Yiping (second from left) and colleagues take a group photo.

 

Daring to Venture

In the process of Ningbo's coastal opening up, reform has always been the main theme, daring to try and daring to venture, which is a relay race.

In October 1992, the 14th National Congress of the Party established the goal of China's economic restructuring as establishing a socialist market economic system. In November of the same year, Ningbo was designated by the then State Economic Restructuring Commission as a pilot city for a new round of comprehensive supporting reforms. The Ningbo Economic and Technological Development Zone, the Ningbo Free Trade Zone, and the Ningbo Daxie Development Zone, as areas taking the lead in establishing a socialist market economic system, comprehensively strived to create new institutional advantages, embarking on a new journey since then.

It was also in this year that Jin Yiping made a bold decision:to resign and start his own business!

"Many people didn't understand why I would start my own business when I was doing well," Jin Yiping once again brought his thoughts back to those passionate years. "I felt that there were more exciting things to do, so I chose to leave (the system)." Like when he came to Ningbo, this "re-departure" was also without hesitation!

Nowadays, starting a business is "commonplace," but at that time, Jin Yiping often faced "soul-searching" questions: "I joined the Party in 1983, and at that moment of taking the oath, I felt that from then on, I was a member of the Party and should strive for communism. Resigning to start my own business felt like making money for myself, which was a bit shameful."

"Later, a friend asked me if I paid taxes according to the law after starting my own business, if I provided jobs, and if I paid salaries to employees... If I did all these things, then I was also contributing to society, and my psychological burden was lightened." Thirty years have passed, and Jin Yiping's enterprise has survived the "turbulent waves" of the era.

Looking back on the road he has traveled, he frankly said that both himself and Ningbo were choices of the era, relying on the courage to "dare to drink the first bowl of soup," taking a small step in breaking the concept and crossing the boundary.

This small step is like sailing against the current, but as long as you take it bravely, you will eventually ride the wind and waves.

Source: Ningbo Evening News Reporter Shi Chengcheng Yuan Xianming Pan Miao Editor Chen Huan Reviewer Teng Hua Zheng Xinwei