The resident population of Hebei Province in the seventh census is 74.6102 million, ranking 6th in the country. With population as the development dividend, Hebei cannot be reduced to a "second-rate province". Over the past decade, Hebei province has indeed regressed, slipping from no. 6 in the country in 2012 to no. 12 in the country in 2021. From the perspective of economic aggregates, this is already the worst result of Hebei Province in the expected future. In 2021, the total GDP of Hebei Province and Anhui, Shanghai and Beijing together exceeded the 4 trillion yuan mark, reaching 4,039.13 billion yuan, and the GDP growth rate was 11.56%, 0.02 percentage points higher than that of Beijing, that is to say, the economy of Hebei Province has begun to pick up.
So how will its municipalities perform in GDP in 2021? According to the total GDP, Tangshan (823.06 billion yuan), Shijiazhuang (649.03 billion yuan), Cangzhou (416.34 billion yuan), Handan (411.48 billion yuan), Baoding (372.5 billion yuan), Langfang (355.31 billion yuan), Xingtai (242.71 billion yuan), Qinhuangdao (184.38 billion yuan), Zhangjiakou (172.78 billion yuan), Hengshui (170.31 billion yuan), Chengde (169.7 billion yuan).
From the overall point of view, Hebei Province's "dual core" Tangshan and Shijiazhuang continue to lead in the province, and are in an absolute advantage. However, what many people did not expect was that Tangshan City actually threw away Shijiazhuang. According to the data, the increase in Shijiazhuang in 2021 is only 55.52 billion yuan, while Tangshan reached 101.97 billion yuan, which means that Tangshan has thrown off Shijiazhuang 46.45 billion yuan a year, and the gap between the two in terms of total GDP is 823.06 billion yuan - 649.0 billion yuan = 174.06 billion yuan, and the "gap" of nearly 200 billion yuan is probably difficult for Shijiazhuang to cross.
In fact, this is very strange. As early as a few years ago, the state criticized Nanjing, Hohhot, Jinan, Shijiazhuang, and Fuzhou for failing to assume their responsibilities as provincial capitals, that is, not driving the development of the province. At about the same time, Jiangsu, Inner Mongolia, Shandong, Fujian, etc. have clearly proposed to strengthen the primacy of provincial capitals. Some provinces have obvious achievements, like Fujian Province, in 2021, the provincial capital Fuzhou finally overtook Quanzhou, which won the first 22 years in the province.
But Shijiazhuang did not perform as prominently as imagined. The growth rate in 2021 is only 9.35%, which is lower than the provincial average. In the same period, Tangshan was 14.14%, 4.79 percentage points higher than Shijiazhuang. From the perspective of future development planning alone, to be full of confidence in the future of Shijiazhuang, not long ago, the Hebei Provincial Government issued the "Opinions on Vigorously Supporting the Construction of the Provincial Capital and High-quality Development".
Handan City with a total GDP of 411.48 billion yuan ranks fourth in the province, from the data point of view, Handan is expected to catch up with Cangzhou and become the third largest city in Hebei Province. In 2021, Cangzhou's total GDP is 416.34 billion yuan, that is to say, Handan is close to Cangzhou, and there is only a gap of 4.86 billion yuan, and in terms of growth rate, Handan's 13.15% is also ahead of Cangzhou's 12.53%.
Among the cities in Hebei Province with a total GDP of 5-11, baoding and Langfang are among the top 100 cities in the country, and in terms of the number of top 100 cities, Hebei is second only to Henan, Zhejiang, Shandong, Guangdong and Jiangsu. After Langfang, Xingtai took up the girder and led with 242.71 billion yuan, and the four cities of Qinhuangdao, Zhangjiakou, Hengshui and Chengde had a total GDP of 165 billion yuan to 185 billion yuan, with a gap of only 20 billion yuan. What many people do not expect is that Hengshui City, which is well-known in Hebei Province and even the whole country, is only in the tenth place with 170.31 billion yuan, and the growth rate is not as good as Chengde, and it is expected to be overtaken by Chengde and fall to the bottom.