Total of 23 localities can boast distinction, including 8 in key Yangtze River Delta With China's gross domestic product having crossed the 100 trillion
yuan ($15.46 trillion) threshold in 2020, more cities have made their
own substantial strides in economic output. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, China added six new cities with GDPs
of over 1 trillion yuan last year, taking the total number of such
cities in the country to 23. The trillion-yuan benchmark is often perceived as a notion of
economic prowess. Shanghai was the first city in China to hit the mark
in 2006. The cities' achievements highlighted the resilience and sustainable
vitality of the Chinese economy, and spearhead the country's
high-quality development for the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) period,
according to experts. "The national and city-level breakthroughs in GDP have injected
critical confidence to both macro and regional economic prospects," said
Zheng Lanxiang, an economics professor at Anhui University. Hefei, capital city of Anhui province, was among the six new entrants
to the 1 trillion yuan GDP bloc, buoyed by an 18.2 percent jump in
output value of strategically emerging industries from computer displays
to integrated circuits. Also making it into the bloc is Nantong, in neighboring Jiangsu
province, which recorded a year-on-year surge of 4.7 percent in GDP last
year. The city leaned toward more traditional industries from
shipbuilding to textiles to bolster growth. The addition of Hefei and Nantong made the Yangtze River Delta
Region-the megacity cluster encompassing Shanghai and Jiangsu, Zhejiang
and Anhui provinces-the area with the highest number of cities in the
nation with GDP over 1 trillion yuan. The cluster has eight such cities. "It definitely showed the (Yangtze River Delta) integration strategy
is taking shape and will continue to fuel growth under the
dual-circulation paradigm," said Chen Wei, head of the Pudong Zhangjiang
Platform Economy Research Institute in Shanghai. The region has long been viewed as a jewel in the crown of China's
economic transformation. It accounts for about a quarter of China's
total economic output and one-third of its annual research and
development expenditures. It also is a major magnet for foreign
investment. China made the delta's integration a national strategy in 2018, and
has since laid out a massive road map including collaborative projects
to boost the region's competitiveness on a global scale. Pacesetter for growth During his inspection tour of Anhui province in August, President Xi
Jinping called for stronger awareness of the status and function of the
delta in China's economic and social development in order to promote the
region's integrated development and turn it into the pacesetter for the
new development pattern. "As such, provinces and cities in the region need to focus on their
own comparative advantages so that duplication is avoided, areas
complement each other and synergies are maximized," Chen said. The collective economic robustness of the delta's cities best
exemplifies how integrated development can add to stability and
resistance to volatility amid uncertainties, said Ren Xinjian, founder
of strategic consultancy Hualue Think Tank in Shanghai. He cited the example of Suzhou, a city some 100 kilometers west of
Shanghai that recorded GDP of more than 2 trillion yuan last year. That
achievement demonstrates the city's deepened coordination and shared
functionality with Shanghai in critical industries such as biomedicine,
artificial intelligence and integrated circuits. Hefei's GDP advancement is also a result of "fostering leading
companies, encouraging innovation and improving business environment …
which draw enormous experience from Shanghai's tech parks", Chen said. Also, nine cities in the delta's G60 Science and Technology
Innovation Corridor, a regional initiative aimed at boosting high-tech
development, have contributed one-twelfth of national fiscal revenue. Fan Hengshan, a distinguished professor specializing in Yangtze River
Delta development at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, said
he believes development of the delta region should focus on three
areas-integration, high-quality and opening-up. "YRD shoulders the responsibility of providing high-quality products
and high-level scientific and technological supplies, and being a role
model for major breakthroughs," he said. "The current economic
achievement is a reflection of how such a strategy is taking effect and
will only reinforce its implementation in the long run." While on track, the region's integration should attend to issues such
as unbalanced development and better allocation of resources, experts
said. "For instance, the problem of intraregion imbalance remains
pronounced in Jiangsu and Anhui provinces," said Wen Jianning, an
associate professor at Shanghai Lixin University of Accounting and
Finance. "And the average disposable income of Anhui represented just 39
percent that of Shanghai, which constitutes a matter of concern."
|