THE Pingshan New Zone was established in Shenzhen yesterday, the latest step forward in implementing a long-term administrative reform plan approved by the State Council in May.

Pingshan was part of Longgang District.

Party chief Liu Yupu and Acting Mayor Wang Rong attended a ceremony yesterday to mark the occasion.

Wang urged the zone to be bold, pioneering and innovative in reforms and set an example for the rest.

The Pingshan zone, bordering Huizhou City, will be administratively separate from Longgang and will feature new ecological technology developments. It is the second of its kind after Guangming New Zone, which was set up next to Dongguan in 2007.

The new zone will incorporate the experiences of Hong Kong and Singapore in terms of urban planning, land distribution and reduced levels of government.

Pingshan and Guangming are piloting an administrative reform that would replace district governments with municipal government offices.

In another development, before the end of the year Shenzhen will submit a draft plan on the special economic zone expansion to the Central Government for its approval, according to a three-year, step-by-step draft plan approved by the city's legislature Monday.

If approved, Bao'an and Longgang districts, which make up four-fifths of the city's area, will become part of the SEZ, whose area will swell from 395 square kilometers to more than 1,900, double the size of Hong Kong.

By 2011, Shenzhen also expects to change its structure of government administration, another ambitious item in the reform package, the three-year plan said.

The administrative system reform, tagged as an experiment in "separation of administrative powers," will divide the municipal government departments into three categories -- decision-making, execution and supervision.

The city is considering a pilot program to levy a real estate tax in three years and pushing forward medical reforms and cross-border cooperation, the plan said.

Source:Shenzhen Daily