Once dominated by agriculture sector, eastern province has turned its attention to high-end manufacturing Editor's note: This year, the Communist Party of China is
celebrating the 100th anniversary of its founding. China Daily is
publishing a series of stories looking at the tremendous changes that
have occurred in provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities under
the leadership of the Party. They also include stories of the people and
places that have left indelible marks in the Party's path to glory. "A bird may go unnoticed if it doesn't sing for 10 years, but once it
sings, it will sing high and amaze the world," said Li Jinbin, Party
chief of Anhui province, referring to an old Chinese idiom. Li, who is secretary of the CPC Anhui Committee, made the remark
while delivering his speech to officials and entrepreneurs from across
the country during the 2020 China (Anhui) Transformation Fair of
Scientific and Technological Innovation Achievements, which concluded in
the provincial capital of Hefei on April 27. "For those innovative projects that will surely prosper, we will be
all in with our support, and even for others whose prospects we are not
sure about, we will also support them and be tolerant," Li said. Before 1978, farmers from Fenyang county in the inland province were
known for singing songs begging for food while traveling around China. At that time, China's collectivized farming policy was in force. The
policy disallowed individual farms and made farmers combine their lands
to grow crops for all. In December that year, after the policy had been in effect nationwide
for about 20 years, 18 farmers in the county's Xiaogang village
secretly signed an agreement to subdivide their common farmland into
family plots in hopes of increasing crop yields. The people of Xiaogang then became the first in the country to escape famine, setting a milestone for China's rural reform. In 1978, Anhui's annual GDP was 11.4 billion yuan ($1.77 billion).
Last year, it reached 3.87 trillion yuan, according to the provincial
government's data. Manufacturing a future At a news conference held by the State Council Information Office for
the province in 2019, Li said Anhui had finished a historic
transformation from an agriculture-dominant province to an emergent
power of industry. Yaohai district, in northeast Hefei, is home to a 30-square-kilometer
area of old factory plants that is transforming into a base for art
venues and leisure grounds. As people contemplate the glorious history of a preserved furnace of a
steel company built in the 1950s, modern buildings and large mansions
are rising on a brand-new 34-sq-km eastern subcenter of the city, like
bamboo shoots after a spring rain. To the west of the city's urban area, the 1,130-hectare Hefei Xinqiao
Intelligent Electric Vehicle Industrial Park broke ground for
construction on April 29, with an initial investment of 50 billion yuan. In November, the Hefei municipal government pledged to increase the
city's new-energy vehicle industry annual output value to 100 billion
yuan by 2025. The new park is more ambitious, aiming to raise the output value to 500 billion yuan in the few years after 2025. Automotive industry The investors include Nio, a major electric car startup who has its
domestic headquarters in Hefei and its global headquarters in Shanghai.
By April, more than 100,000 Nio vehicles had rolled off its Hefei
production line. During an interview last year, Li Bin, founder and CEO of Nio, said
the company has been manufacturing in Hefei since the company was
founded in 2014, and the team in Hefei has grown rapidly, laying a solid
foundation for the company's growth. Volkswagen is also making its mark in the city. "Hefei will be Volkswagen's main production base for electric
vehicles in China," said Joerg Mull, chief finance officer of Volkswagen
Anhui, a joint venture of Volkswagen AG and Hefei-based JAC Motors. Other major automakers include Chery, the largest Chinese auto brand,
which is based in Wuhu city and sees annual sales revenues of more than
100 billion yuan. Year-on-year, production of NEVs in Anhui soared to 39,000 units in
the first quarter of this year, according to the provincial Department
of Economy and Information Technology. With auto manufacturing as a pillar industry, Anhui has nearly 1,000
major companies-those with an annual turnover of at least 20 million
yuan-engaged in the auto industry, according to the department. The authorities said the whole industrial chain for the auto manufacturing industry has been well formed. Near Nio's plant in the Hefei Economic and Technological Development
Area is the LCFC company, Lenovo's largest PC manufacturing base in
China which has been the province's largest exporter for seven
consecutive years. The company, whose annual sales revenue surpassed 100 billion last
year, receives more than 60 percent of the parts from over 70 suppliers
from the province, according to Bai Peng, CEO of LCFC. In the development zone also lies Chang-Xin Memory Technologies, one
of the earliest integrated circuit companies to invest in Hefei in 2016.
In May last year, the company entered a new phase with an investment of
33.3 billion yuan and broke ground for construction in the zone. The company specializes in dynamic random access memory chips and will amass a total investment of 220 billion yuan. Now the city is enjoying an intact chain for integrated circuit
development and related companies, including those engaged in original
material production, chip designing, manufacturing and package testing. Other major high-tech companies in Hefei include BOE Technology, a leading Chinese supplier of display products and solutions. By last year, the number of high-tech enterprises in the province had
increased to 8,559 from 1,742 of 2012. The average ownership of
invention patents in the province has also reached 15.4 patents per
10,000 people, compared to 1.3 in 2012, according to the Anhui
provincial government. The province has especially stood out for its efforts in developing
the chip industry as the country endeavors to be self-reliant on key
technologies and lessen its dependence on microprocessors from overseas,
according to provincial authorities.
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