Chasing Dreams of China·Overseas Chinese Meet the Free Trade Port: The Old City Transforms into a “New City”

China News Service, Chengmai, Hainan, September 8th, Title: Chasing the Dream of China· Overseas Chinese Seeing the Free Trade Port: The Old City Transformed into a “New City”

China News Service reporter Fu Yuqun

The core industry of the digital economy has a revenue of 103.5 billion yuan, the oil and gas exploration and production service industry has successfully applied for a tens of billions-level industrial cluster, and has cultivated the province's first national key leading enterprise in agricultural industrialization that operates the entire industry chain...

On September 7, Chinese media representatives participating in the "Chasing China and Overseas Chinese Seeing Free Trade Port" 2026 Overseas Chinese Media Hainan Interview Tour visited the Hainan Old Town Science and Technology New Town Administration Bureau in the old town of Chengmai County. The beating industrial data and cutting-edge scientific and technological achievements in the exhibition hall were in sharp contrast with the name "Old Town" of this thousand-year-old town.

On September 7, overseas Chinese media representatives visited the Hainan Old Town Science and Technology New Town located in the old town of Chengmai County. Photo by China News Service reporter Luo Yunfei

The old town was the seat of Chengmai County in ancient times, formerly known as Chengjiangpo. In the third year of Daye of Sui Dynasty (AD 607), Chengmai County was established here. From then on, it has been the political, economic and cultural center of Chengmai for 1288 years. In the 21st year of the reign of Emperor Guangxu of the Qing Dynasty (1895), the county seat was moved to Jinjiang Town. To commemorate this period of history, "Chengjiangpo" was renamed "Old City", which is still used today.

Thousands of years later, this place named "old" is answering with "new".

"The old city is not old, and the new city is booming." Wang Jiadong, investment director of the Chengmai County Old City Science and Technology New City Administration, told representatives of the Chinese media that in March 2023, Hainan issued the "Old City Science and Technology New City Management System Reform Plan", and the Hainan Ecological Software Park and Jinma Modern Logistics Park were integrated into the Old City Economic Development Zone and renamed the Old City Science and Technology New City, implementing the "one city, three parks" management model. In 2025, Laocheng Science and Technology New City's "one city and three parks" will achieve revenue of approximately 245 billion yuan, becoming the core position to promote the development of new productivity and help enterprises "go overseas".

Wang Jiadong said that relying on the dividends from the Hainan Free Trade Port's customs closure operation, the park focuses on developing the four leading industries of digital economy, oil and gas exploration and production services, advanced manufacturing, and modern logistics, and cultivating future industries such as artificial intelligence and low-altitude economy. It has formed a 100-billion-level digital economy cluster and three 10-billion-level clusters of oil and gas services, food intensive processing, and new materials. It is moving towards the development goals of "one city, one district, and two bases" - a coastal industrial new city, a digital-physical integration innovation zone, an oil and gas service base, and an enterprise overseas headquarters base.

A set of data confirms the quality of the "new city": Hainan Ecological Software Park gathers about 16,000 companies, and Tencent, Baidu and other companies have deployed their overseas businesses here; as of June this year, Hainan's game overseas public service platform has 119 companies settled in it, and 213 overseas games have been released. The number of users exceeds 33.52 million; there are more than 30 cross-border e-commerce live broadcast base companies, and more than 60 foreign anchors from 12 countries including Russia, Greece, and Spain have signed cooperation contracts; in 2025, the park has completed 82 investment signing projects with a contract value of 18.8 billion yuan.

In addition, the construction of major projects such as Macun Port Phase III and CNOOC Hainan Production Support Base has been accelerated. Chengli Group’s new energy special vehicle export assembly base and Zhongyun (Chengmai) Industrial Park have been launched one after another. A “new” industrial landscape is growing on the “old” land.

On September 7, overseas Chinese media representatives visited the Hainan Old Town Science and Technology New Town located in the old town of Chengmai County. Photo by China News Service reporter Luo Yunfei

"The open policy of the Hainan Free Trade Port provides convenient conditions for enterprises to carry out export trade. I am very concerned about how Chinese products go to sea through Hainan." At the Hainan Game Overseas Maker Space in Chengmai, watching the domestic games from here to the Southeast Asian, European and American markets, Xu Bingyi, chairman of the Malaysian Overseas Media Group, said that integrating local culture into products and selling overseas through the free trade port channel is exactly the answer he is looking for during this trip. "In Chengmai, in the Old City Science and Technology New City, I saw this possibility."

Zhao Xu, deputy director of the New Zealand China News Agency, was deeply touched by the contrast between "old" and "new". She said that the old city once went down in history as a thousand-year-old county seat. Now, under the word "old city", what beats is the surging pulse of the digital economy, artificial intelligence and the wave of overseas expansion.

After learning that foreign anchors from Russia and other countries are active in the cross-border e-commerce live broadcast base in the park, Wang Niandong, a reporter from Russia's "Dragon News", said that Chinese culture is going to the world in new forms such as games, short plays, e-commerce, etc. This exploration of "cultural overseas" also provides new topics and new channels for cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries. "I will tell the story of this 'new city' to more overseas readers."

Chengmai was once called the "ferry" because Su Dongpo moved south and returned to the north; today, the old city Science and Technology New City is becoming the "new ferry" for the culture of the new era to go overseas. From the county seat in the Sui Dynasty to the Hainan Free Trade Port New City, thousands of years of time have folded on this land - the "old city" is not old, and the "new city" is booming. (over)