AS one of Tianjin’s featured international shopping areas and one of the most popular business districts in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, an Italian-style business district next to the Wuqing high-speed railway station is helping to build a new form of regional consumption.

It includes Florentia Village, an outlet mall built with Italian architecture featuring international luxury brands at attractive prices; a mall themed on cultural and art education; and the eye-popping V1 Auto World, which has not only hosted major international events, but also become a hotspot for automobile fans.

“Innovative service modes and novel business forms are keeping the business district alive, becoming important channels for attracting customers and driving revenue growth,” said Howard H. Li, chairman and CEO of Waitex Group, one of the main investors of the business district.

Li said the business district has now covered diversified industries including leisure shopping, sports, culture and education, and automobile service, attracting more than 500 well-known domestic and foreign brands, with the total investment exceeding 15 billion yuan (US$2.4 billion).

Riding the growing wave of e-commerce and livestreaming, many shops in the business district have extended multiple sales channels to embrace a broader consumer market. A clothing store named NT Collection registered a livestreaming account amid the epidemic.

“Thanks to livestreaming, our clothes have been sold throughout the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and even in other provinces in China,” said Wang Kun, manager of the store.

Focusing on building international consumption centers, Tianjin has been constructing numerous landmark business districts and introducing fresh projects.(Xinhua)