This is a report from China Daily:
The construction of a modern national center in Zhengzhou, Central China’s Henan province, was elevated in 2023, fulfilling the city’s commitment to high-quality development, according to a local government work report released in February.
Official statistics showed that the city’s GDP increased by 7.4 percent year-on-year to surpass 1.36 trillion yuan ($188.6 billion) in 2023. Meanwhile, its industrial added value above designated size grew by 12.8 percent, ranking first among nine national center cities across China.
Total retail sales of consumer goods and fixed asset investment in Zhengzhou were up 7.7 percent and 6.8 percent, respectively. Also, the city’s proportion of spending on research and development to GDP has outperformed the national average for two consecutive years.
In the government work report, it said 2024 is crucial for Zhengzhou to construct a modern national center. It will promote the establishment of modern industrial systems, build one of China’s first demonstration zones for new industrialization and foster new quality productive forces — buzzwords used during the two sessions held in March.
In 2023, to better develop advanced manufacturing, Zhengzhou made a three-year action plan to promote 20 key industry chains and managed to sign 238 large industrial projects, with a total contract value exceeding 290 billion yuan. Projects from emerging industries accounted for 78.2 percent of this.
Moreover, the number of specialized and sophisticated businesses that produce novel and unique products reached 3,554 in the city, including 122 “little giant” companies with cutting-edge technologies. It also produced 830,000 vehicles, up 61.7 percent year-on-year, of which 316,000 were new energy vehicles.
This year, relying on leading enterprises — such as China Electrical Equipment, China Railway Engineering Equipment, Zhengzhou Coal Mining Machinery Group and Weihua Group — Zhengzhou will expand the scale of its equipment manufacturing industrial cluster and plans to sign at least five national intelligent manufacturing projects.
It also plans to attach greater importance to electronic information, striving to increase the industry’s output value by more than 5 percent, with the scale of the industrial cluster reaching 700 billion yuan.
Moreover, the city is scheduled to produce more than 700,000 NEVs by the end of this year, which is expected to help increase the output value of the automobile industry by 60 percent. It will optimize the layout of algorithms, computing power and big data centers, and accelerate the construction of such projects as a new national internet exchange center and the Zhengzhou artificial intelligence computing center.
More efforts will be made by the city government to achieve self-reliance in science and technology, and enhance independent innovation capability, according to the work report.
In 2023, Zhengzhou finished building a “quantum valley”, which has attracted a series of related projects and labs. It added four new national laboratories and five provincial ones, bringing the total number of these two types of lab up to 14 and 12 respectively.
It also accelerated construction of an ultrashort ultra-intense laser experimental device, one of the first large scientific devices in Henan. And it started to build a core part of a national supercomputing internet project.
China plans to build the supercomputing internet by the end of 2025 to connect powerful computers across the nation and tap into their joint power to promote innovation and socioeconomic growth, experts said.
This year, Zhengzhou is striving to become a State-level regional sci-tech innovation center by highlighting the development of platforms, subjects, environment and talents.
The city plans to introduce 10 prestigious universities and sci-tech research institutions, as well as attracting and cultivating 50 innovative and entrepreneurial teams, supporting 60 projects by young talents, and introducing 1,000 young talents with doctoral degrees or above.
Another focus in the government work report is the expansion of high-level opening-up to achieve more win-win results.
In 2023, 12 institutional innovation achievements in the Zhengzhou Area of China (Henan) Pilot Free Trade Zone were replicated and promoted nationwide. The number of registered companies in the area surpassed 90,000.
The city also became home to several international facilities including an ASEAN Center and an international cooperation center built by the local government and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization. The number of its international sister cities increased to 13 and international cities with friendly and cooperative relations grew to 34.
Zhengzhou also finished establishing an Air Silk Road in 2023, linking it with Cambodia and other ASEAN countries. It opened 15 related passenger routes, which handled more than 25 million passengers in 2023, and nine cargo routes, with a combined handling capacity of 608,000 metric tons.
This year, the city will promote high-level opening-up and strengthen the leading role of its free trade zone. The number of newly registered companies in the zone is expected to reach 15,000. Zhengzhou also plans to push forward the third phase of an airport expansion and make overall planning on the construction of a second airport.
It will launch a “freight trains plus industries” campaign and hopes to operate more than 3,000 China-Europe freight trains annually.
Other highlights of this year’s work include deepening reform of State-owned enterprises and government services, improving people’s livelihoods and conducting more green and low-carbon practices, according to the work report.
