More Than Work

To avoid becoming a ghost town after work hours, Beijing's CBD needs to offer more than office buildings. It should also provide residential spaces, leisure facilities and a pleasant natural environment, according to an official with the local administrative committee.

Every year, the CBD hosts an array of cultural and sports events such as sculpture exhibitions, drama club performances and a corporate soccer tournament to make the area more fun, according to Beijing Daily.

In June, the CBD launched a series of events themed "Urban Life with Art", which included virtual gallery tours, livestreams of artists painting murals and an origami exhibition to increase public awareness of wildlife protection.

In May 2019, the CBD opened a city forest park to create a more sustainable urban environment and also to provide a convenient getaway for people working and living in the area.

Going forward, the CBD seeks to put itself on a par with the best business districts around, including the City of London, Financial District in New York and Marunouchi in Tokyo.

To make this happen, the CBD formulated an action plan last year for turning itself into a space for "multidimensional international exchanges" over three years.

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AT A GLANCE

Location: district in south-central Beijing

Area: 470.8 sq km

Permanent population:

3.47 million in 2019

GDP: 650 billion yuan in 2019

Internationalization: The district is home to almost all the foreign embassies in China; 80 percent of international organizations and foreign chambers of commerce; and more than 70 percent of overseas investment companies and multinationals' regional headquarters in Beijing.