Introduction

Mudanjiang is the central city in southeastern part of Heilongjiang province, consisting of 6 counties (cities), namely Suifenhe, Hailin, Ning’an, Muling, Dongning and Linkou, and 4 districts, namely Dong’an, Xi’an, Aimin and Yangming. The city has a total area of 40,600 km² with a total population of 2.08 million including 240,000 people of 38 different minority ethnic groups such as Korean, Manchu, Hui and Mongol.

Mudanjiang, with its coastal and favorable location, is an open city full of dynamic economic and trade activities. Mudanjiang is located in the heart of the Northeast Asian Economic Circle sharing a border of 211 km with Russia with a distance of 53 km to Russian Far East transport hub Ussuriysk, a distance of 153 km to Vladivostok Port, a linear distance of 50 km to Sea of Japan. It serves as a significant strategic fulcrum to the Heilongjiang Economic Belt and Maritime Silk Road along the “China-Mongolia-Russia Economic Corridor”, as well as a bridgehead and hub to China’s opening-up on the border to Russia. China National Highway G10 and G11, Harbin-Suifenhe Railway and Tumen-Kiamusze Railway run through the entire city. And Mudanjiang-Suifenhe High-speed Rail has been completed and started its operation. The transformation of Harbin-Mudanjiang Passenger Dedicated Line, Mudanjiang-Kiamusze Passenger Dedicated Line and Harbin-Mudanjian cable electrification has been accelerated. Mudanjiang has 13 international and domestic air routes to cities including Seoul in South Korea, Vladivostok in Russia, Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, reaching the aviation economic circle of 4 countries including Russia, Japan, South Korea and North Korea within 2 hours. The great “Harbin-Mudanjiang-Suifenhe-Vladivostok-Busan” ocean and rail corridor has become a new port in Heilongjiang. Mudanjiang has over 100 years of economic and trade relationship with Russia. It has 4 first-class national ports including Suifenhe railway, Suifenhe highway，Dongning highway and Mudanjiang Airport with the cargo handling capacity of 38.5 million tons and 17.5 million passengers per year. Seven overseas zones have been established in Russia. The number of cross-border chain processing enterprises has reached 120. Mudanjiang’s trade volume to Russia accounts for one third of the overall trade volume of the whole province and is a major trading city with Russia in China.

Mudanjiang, with its long history and rich culture, is a city full of diversities. The first appearance of ancient human activities on the land of Mudanjiang dated back to 170,000 years ago. 5 million years ago, in the Paleolithic era, human started to move to live and work in the area. However the human history in Mudanjiang River area was revealed by Su Shen people, the ancestors of Manchu, on this very land 3000 years ago. 1300 years ago, the famous “Prosperous Kingdom in East Sea” Bohai Kingdom rised and established its capital here. From the Shang Dynasty, Zhou Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, it has been the northern minorities’ residence here, the birthplace of the Manchu and also the country's third largest Korean settlements. Yinggeling culture in Shang Dynasty and Zhou Dynasty, Bohai culture in Tang Dynasty, Ninggu tower culture in Qing Dynasty, modern "Break through the East" immigration culture, development and construction of the Great Northern Wilderness culture, among many other cultural heritages, have accumulated and developed in Mudanjiang. It was also the battle field for the eight female warriors including Ms. Leng Yun, Yang Zirong and many other heroes, as well as the final battle field of the Second World War. With folk culture, Red history and culture and hundred years of intercultural exchanges with Russia, Mudanjiang has formed its unique cultural system and context. A special "Mudanjiang cultural phenomenon" appeared following the emergence of a large number of local cultural and performing artists including well known Kairu Jiang, Qingsong Song, Hang Che, Changjiang Pan and Geng Han. In recent years, a variety of TV shows and films such as "Dad, Where Are We Going?", "Rush to the Northeast", "The Taking of Tiger Mountain 3D" have introduced Mudanjiang City to the whole nation.

Mudanjiang, with its top quality ecosystem, beautiful mountains and rivers, is a charming city suitable for both living and visiting. Mudanjiang features a monsoon-influenced, humid continental climate with four distinct seasons. With comfortable temperature, humid air, luxuriant plants and 5.1℃ average temperature, Mudanjiang has a warm but not hot summer and a cool but not cold winter, which has granted Mudanjiang the reputation of “land of abundance” and “Lush Southern Type Fileds beyond the Great Wall”. The city's forest coverage rate reaches 64%. The negative oxygen ions per cubic centimeter is about 6000 in average and in some places, it can reach as high as 10,000. Mudanjiang has over 2500 wild animal and plant species, known as the "natural gene pool in Heilongjiang Province”. It is the province's second largest tourist center with tourism resources covering all major categories, presenting "Lake, Forest, Snow, Border, Culture, Uniqueness, Red History" seven characteristics. It has 9 provincial nature reserves, 10 National Forest Parks, 7 National Wetland Parks and more than 450 tourist attractions, bizarre crater "underground forest", the world's largest volcanic barrier lake - Jingpo Lake or Mirror Lake and 17 world-class tourism resources full of snow and winter fun, together with 59 other national tourism resources, which offer tourists unique experience in all seasons. Mudanjiang is among the first members of World Tourism City Federation, China Excellent Tourism Cities, and top 100 China's Tourism competitiveness Cities.

Mudanjiang, with its abundant resources and production factors, is a fast growing industrial city. Located at 45 degrees north latitude, it is in the world golden belts of corn, milk sources and black soil and has accelerated its unique development in the fields such as fungus, vegetables, husbandry and forestry. The areas with the certification of green and organic food have reached 4.7 million acres in Mudanjiang, which is the capital of green and organic food in China. The production of edible fungus accounts for 1/2 of Heilongjiang Province, and the trading volume accounts for 2/3 of the whole country. Mudanjiang is known as “the City of Edible Fungus in China” and the “World Capital of Auricularia Auricula”. Our green products are exported to Russian, Korea, Japan, and over 40 countries and regions in Europe and America. The export of fruits and vegetables accounts for 70% of the whole province. Our products, including Xiangshui rice and Dongning Auricularia Auricula, have sound reputation at home and abroad. Mudanjiang has 34 industries, 16 domestic and foreign zones (Mudanjiang Economic and Technology Development Zone and Hailin Economic and Technology Development Zone are national zones) and has employed 200,000 industrial workers. Mudanjiang has rich natural resources with 43 types of minerals and 290 million m³ forest volume. Its graphite reserve ranks first in the country. The power generation capacity in Mudanjiang doubles the consumption volume, leaving 50% of power surplus on average every year. It is also the entry and exit point of Sino-Russian cross-border cable channel. Relying on its natural resource and industrial foundation, the city has developed 445 enterprises above state designated scale. The economic volume of forest paper, food and medicine, equipment manufacturing, new materials and other advantageous industries accounted for 80% of that of all industries. Meanwhile the mineral economy, new generation of information technology and other industries are in full rise. As commerce, logistics, tourism, finance and other modern service industry are developing rapidly in Mudanjiang, it is regarded as regional consumption center in Heilongjiang Province with over 20% of annual growth in tourism income on average. Mudanjiang's commercial logistics reaches Russian Far East, eastern Jilin and neighboring cities and is a model city of modern logistics circulation, regional circulation node city and cross-border trade e-commerce service pilot city.

Mudanjiang, being innovative, tolerant, harmonious and civilized, is a city of attraction and vitality. In recent years, we are committed to optimizing development environment as the breakthrough point for promoting the revitalization and development; to firmly deepening reform and innovation; to constructing the “close and clean” relationships between state and business; to bringing the strength of the whole city; to building a legal environment which is the best to gather talented people by sharing the wealth and for development; to constantly deepening the reform to streamline administration, delegate power, strengthen regulation and improve services; to promoting the overall establishment of power list, accountability list, public services list, intermediary services list and negative list. The administrative licensing approval items have been reduced by 63.3% and the non-administrative licensing approval items have been cancelled. An innovative approach of “1-Form System” for the enterprise registration and “1-Drawing and 3-Meeting System” for the project approval has been implemented which leads to the results that it takes only 1 day to process the business registration and only 30 days, 20 days and 15 days respectively to approve the general projects, key projects and industrial projects. An enterprise appeal center has been established. “1-Team System” has been adopted for the law enforcement. The“Safety and Security Project”, “Access Control System” and “Service Fee List” for the enterprises have been initiated. All these means are to create a favorable atmosphere in order to get close to, respect, care and support all enterprises.  We are dedicated to building Mudanjiang as a national civilized city with integrity and honesty subject to rule of law, to promoting the comprehensive supervision on production safety, food and drug safety and social security, to creating a stable and harmonious social environment and to establishing a safe and secure city in Heilongjiang province.

Mudanjiang, with broad prospects and great potential, is a revitalizing “City of Hope”. During the “Twelfth Five-year Plan” period, our city’s economy showed a “steady progress” development trend. Thereinto, Fixed Asset Investment doubled every four years. Retail Sales of Consumer Goods doubled every five years. And the size of economy jumped to the third place within the whole province. In 2016, the growth rate of Mudanjiang’s GDP and Above-scale Industrial Added Value ranked No. 3 and the growth rate of Fixed Asset Investment and Retail Sales of Consumer Goods ranked the top throughout the province. It has been in succession approved to become a series of national pilots, such as the only China-Russia regional friendly cooperation model city, national old industrial area relocation and transformation pilot, national new pattern urbanization comprehensive pilot area, national new energy model city, national water ecological civilization city construction pilot, Suidong key development and open pilot area, and national private economy reform model city. It enjoyed favorable national taxation, financing, investment, foreign trade and other related preferential policies, and its status and role has improved continuously throughout the country and the province. In the next five years, our city will thoroughly carry out the spirit of the important speeches of Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, especially on the spirit of the two important speeches about Heilongjiang. Meanwhile, our city will deeply promote “the reform and opening-up”, “developing city based on industry”, innovation-driven strategy, and focus on building “industrial highland”, “new innovative city”, “well-known open city”, “forest and snow town”, “happy home” and “breeze and snow city”. We will strive to create a new layout of comprehensive development in Mudanjiang.

Warmly welcome to Mudanjiang - a beautiful, rich, open and civilized city!