China News Service, Guangzhou, November 10 (Reporter Wang Jian) In the past, the land reserved by village communities mostly depended on individual leases to survive by collecting rent; now, in Baiyun District, Guangzhou, this land is developing a new logic of increasing income.
Guangzhou City of Design has completed its transformation from a traditional village-level industrial park to an international design industry highland in just a few years. Photo courtesy of Baiyun District Government
In Baiyun District, after the old industrial park of Huangbian Village was renovated and merged into Guangzhou Design Capital, the area's annual revenue exceeded 90 billion yuan, and the village's collective economic income doubled to twice that before the transformation. Such changes stem from the fact that Baiyun District has moved away from the "one village, one place, each working on its own" strategy, and shifted the reserved land from fragmented leasing to coordinated and contiguous development in the area.
The area around Shihu Village on Dayuan Street, also located in Baiyun District, was transformed into a wasteland a few years ago. Now the 200,000-square-meter Sasseur (Guangzhou) Outlet Park has been fully topped out and is expected to open at the end of this year. It will be surrounded by bonded warehouses, a global beauty selection center, a Wyndham hotel and a music park, and the commerce, industry, and culture and tourism will be intertwined. Jiahe Digital Technology Industrial Park and Yunchuang City connect the reserved land to new tracks such as digital technology and low-altitude economy.
The misalignment of indicators is another obstacle: "Villages with indicators do not have good land, and villages with good land lack indicators." The person in charge of the relevant departments of the Baiyun District Government said that the district is exploring cross-village adjustments. Xialiang Village, Longgui Street, transferred the indicators of historical reserved land and allocated them By purchasing the land in Tangyong Village, Xinshi Street, Fosun Chancheng Hospital will be built - with more than 1,300 planned beds according to Triple-A standards. Xialiang Village will receive long-term property income, while Tangyong Village will revitalize the land at their doorstep, and the people will enjoy high-level medical care nearby.
Another issue worthy of attention is that village communities have land, but often lack planning, construction and operation capabilities. According to the Baiyun District Government, the district’s state-owned enterprises took the lead in forming a development and operation alliance, with Baiyun City Development coordinating resources, and Baiyun Construction Technology sinking to Derun Plaza and other projects to conduct program demonstrations. At the same time, a property resource library was built to include 109,500 square meters of ready-made properties such as new energy innovation parks and bio-manufacturing innovation bases into the “indicator-for-property” menu. Village collectives do not have to wait for a long construction period and can directly obtain stable operating assets.
In addition, projects are slow to implement and often get stuck in the approval process. Baiyun District established a special team for reserved land development and issued Guangzhou's first "Full Process Time Planning Guidelines for Reserved Land Project Development", which united the forces of planning, natural resources, housing construction, commerce and other departments. All Ritong Smart Logistics Park was followed up by the direct departments of Taihe Town Lianhe District and started construction three months earlier than originally planned; enterprises and villages changed from "separate departments" to "dedicated door-to-door services".
From old factories to business districts, from paper indicators to tertiary hospitals, from scattered rentals to new industrial cities, Baiyun District uses policy innovation, regional coordination, state-owned enterprise empowerment and full-cycle services to turn dormant collective resources into sustainable profits. The government establishes mechanisms, village collectives manage assets, and market entities develop industries—the reserved land is no longer just a rent, but a common prosperity driver for the two-way flow of urban and rural factors.
