Per reporter: Tan Zhongkui Per editor: Liu Yanmei
Image source: Photo_501728808
Who is the "first city" of the midwest non-provincial capital?
With the release of the 2021 economic report card of various places one after another, this problem, which did not have much suspense in the past, has begun to have new changes -
The economy of Luoyang, Henan, which has been ranking first for many years, has "stalled", and the GDP growth rate is only 4.8%. Under this "gap", Xiangyang, which ranks second for many years, has narrowed the gap between the two to tens of billions of yuan. What is even more "thrilling" is that Yulin's GDP under the coal outlet has soared by more than 130 billion yuan, and it is only less than 1.2 billion yuan from Luoyang, becoming the biggest "spoiler".
It is worth mentioning that Luoyang, Yulin and Xiangyang are sub-central cities or important growth poles supported by Henan, Shaanxi and Hubei respectively. At the "first meeting" of the New Year, Hubei clearly shouted out support for Xiangyang to build a "leading city in the non-provincial capital of the central and western regions".
Spoilers
Shaanxi fought a beautiful turnaround battle. In the case of an unfavorable start in the first three quarters of last year, it finally surpassed Jiangxi by 18.1 billion yuan, and thrilled to maintain the economic ranking of 14th in the country. What is particularly important is that Yulin, the "Strange Soldier of Northern Cyprus", has stabilized the province's market with a GDP increase of 100 billion.
In 2021, the GDP of Xi'an, the capital of Shaanxi Province, was 1,068.828 billion yuan, with a growth rate of only 4.1%, an increase of about 66.89 billion yuan. In contrast, Yulin "marched forward", with GDP reaching 543.518 billion yuan, an increase of 7.9% year-on-year. From the incremental point of view, it is as high as 134.552 billion yuan, and the role of "important growth pole" is becoming more prominent.
Image source: Xinhua News Agency
In the province, the position was stabilized. Outside the province, Yulin rose 11 places sharply, ranking among the top 50 (46 places) in the national economy. At the same time, with a 100-billion-level increment, it surpassed Xiangyang in one fell swoop, becoming the second city in the non-provincial capital of the central and western regions, and locked the gap between the two at 12.618 billion yuan. Even compared with Luoyang, which ranks first, there is only a gap of less than 1.2 billion yuan.
This exhilarated Yulin. According to the Yulin Municipal Bureau of Statistics, Yulin has achieved three major breakthroughs - the total economic volume exceeded the mark of 500 billion yuan; the total industrial output value exceeded 700 billion yuan for the first time, an increase of 55.9% year-on-year; and the "five enterprises" exceeded 3,000 households, a record high.
Yulin's development in recent years has been very rapid. In 2010, it exceeded 200 billion yuan, in 2017 it exceeded 300 billion yuan, in 2019 it exceeded 400 billion yuan, in 2021 it exceeded 500 billion yuan, and surpassed Yinchuan, Ordos, Baotou, Hohhot, Taiyuan and other provincial capitals, ranking first in the Yellow River "several" character bay Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningmengjin region.
Looking back, The economic trend of Yulin is closely related to the coal market. The energy industry is the economic pillar of Yulin, and in 2020, the energy industry and the non-energy industry will account for 89.6% and 10.4% of the industrial added value respectively. In 2021, affected by factors such as rising international energy prices and domestic supply guarantee tasks, the volume and price of Yulin coal rose together, and the output of raw coal in Yulin reached 552 million tons in 2021, a record high.
In the view of Zhang Baotong, a researcher at the Shaanxi Academy of Social Sciences, the reason why Yulin has achieved impressive results is because of the sharp increase in coal prices last year, especially in the fourth quarter.
From the perspective of investment and consumption, Yulin has no shortage of hidden worries. In 2021, Yulin's fixed asset investment fell by 13.5% over the previous year, investment in key areas such as industry and infrastructure continued to narrow, and real estate development investment increased by 19.1%; the total retail sales of consumer goods in the city were 70.325 billion yuan, a year-on-year growth rate of only 7.5%.
In the long run, "double carbon" is the trend of the times, leaving Yulin with a real problem, or how to achieve green and low-carbon development of resource-based cities.
crisis
For Luoyang, killing Yulin halfway is only one aspect. Even without Yulin, xiangyang, a major town in Hubei, is steadily approaching. The real connotation of the Luoyang crisis is still the slowdown in the pace of development of this old industrial base itself, leaving an opportunity for latecomers to take advantage of.
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Consider stretching the timeline. In 2009, Luoyang took the lead in breaking through 200 billion yuan, one year earlier than Yulin and 2 years earlier than Xiangyang; in 2019, Luoyang stepped into 500 billion yuan, 2 years earlier than Yulin and Xiangyang; in 2021, the biggest gap between the three is only 10 billion yuan. From the perspective of economic volume, Luoyang's first-mover advantage has gradually worn out in the past 10 years.
In 2021, Luoyang's GDP was 544.71 billion yuan, with a growth rate of only 4.8%, far lower than the national average growth rate of 8.1%. From the incremental point of view, it is only 31.87 billion yuan. In contrast, Xiangyang's GDP, which has been following closely for many years, has successfully exceeded the 500 billion yuan mark, reaching 530.943 billion yuan, and the gap between the two has narrowed from more than 50 billion yuan in 2020 to more than 13 billion yuan.
This is not unrelated to the lack of industrial kinetic energy in Luoyang. From the perspective of industrial growth, Luoyang is only 1.8%, while Yulin and Xiangyang are 9.3% and 20.3% respectively. In the past 10 years, the proportion of Luoyang's secondary industry has dropped from 61.3% to 43.7%, and in 2017, the industrial structure has achieved a transformation from "two-three-one" to "three-two-one", and the proportion of tertiary industry has continued to increase.
Miao Changhong, director of the Yellow River Civilization and Sustainable Development Research Center at Henan University, told Uncle Cheng that this change is meaningful on the basis of a more efficient development of the secondary industry. However, in many central and western cities, the industry is relatively slow in innovation and structural adjustment, and the increase in the proportion of tertiary production is actually at the expense of the insufficient development of secondary industry, and the improvement of tertiary industry is not due to the rapid growth of high-end productive service industries. ”
In terms of different industries, the added value of Luoyang's primary, secondary and tertiary industries in 2021 will be 26.10 billion yuan, 237.87 billion yuan and 280.74 billion yuan respectively, of which the growth rate of the secondary industry is only 0.4%. From the perspective of industrial profits, the industrial profit in Luoyang in the first 11 months of last year was only 26.58 billion yuan, and yulin was 185.65 billion yuan in the same period.
As an important industrial town, Luoyang plays an important role in Henan. From provincial planning to national strategy, its positioning has always been "sub-center", but its development in recent years seems to be too "flat and stable". Ren Xiaoli, director of the Regional Economic Research Center of the Henan Academy of Social Sciences, previously said that compared with other cities in China, "Luoyang seems to have a little less of the sense of crisis that is indispensable in this era."
In Miao Changhong's view, just like the old industrial base in northeast China, Luoyang's structural adjustment task is also very heavy. In addition, Luoyang is west of Xi'an, east of Zhengzhou, Luoyang as a sub-center development hinterland is very limited, is not conducive to the aggregation of population and economic activities.
He believes that the original state-owned scientific research units are relatively concentrated in Luoyang, but like many central and western cities, these resources are moving outward to coastal cities (or central cities), and whether innovation can be well gathered also affects its industrial structure adjustment and long-term economic performance.
compete
The dispute over the first city of non-provincial capitals in the Midwest has entered the stage of "close combat", and the biggest gap between the three is only more than 10 billion yuan. There is no doubt that the competition in the new year will be more intense.
The first to strike is Hubei. On February 7, the Hubei Provincial Party Committee and the Hubei Provincial Government held a conference on the in-depth implementation of the regional development layout and county economic development in the province, and Ying Yong, secretary of the Provincial Party Committee, in addition to emphasizing the province's unswerving support for Wuhan to become bigger and stronger, also highlighted: promoting Xiangyang to build a non-provincial capital city in the central and western regions and a central city in the Han River Basin, Yichang to build a non-provincial capital leading city in the central and western regions and a regional central city in the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River.
It is worth mentioning that it is relatively rare for provincial-level cities to openly support cities in the province to build "leading cities in non-provincial capitals in the central and western regions", which also reflects Hubei's confidence in strengthening the "double sub-center". In 2021, the GDP of Xiangyang and Yichang both exceeded 500 billion yuan, at 530.943 billion yuan and 502.269 billion yuan respectively, with a growth rate of 14.7% and 16.8% respectively. Although there is still a gap from the top three, the development momentum of Yichang cannot be underestimated.
Of course, the most beautiful is Still Xiangyang. As a well-known automobile city in China, it has relatively obvious advantages in the development of emerging industries and foreign trade. More importantly, it is located in the geometric center of the four major urban agglomerations (economic circles) of the Central Plains, the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, Chengdu-Chongqing and Guanzhong, and with the acceleration of the West 10 high-speed railway and the Zhengwan high-speed railway, Xiangyang will form a "high-speed rail cross" connecting the four major regions in the next few years, which will further enlarge the advantages of Xiangyang resource distribution in the "seven provinces".
As far as the three cities of Luoyang, Xiangyang and Yulin are concerned, there are large differences in location and industry, and their development potential is also closely related to their own region and environment. Zhang Baotong of the Shaanxi Academy of Social Sciences told Chengshu that compared with the economic volume of the surpass, Yulin should grasp the strategic positioning of ecological protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin, and build a neighboring regional central city in Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningbo and Mengjin.
He believes that it is necessary to take advantage of the rise of Yulin's economic status and the implementation of the Yellow River strategy by the state, accelerate the construction of the Baohai high-speed railway, strive to open up the broken road of the Qingyin high-speed railway, and develop service industries such as transportation and logistics, finance and trade, and cultural tourism; accelerate the development of energy and chemical industry and its upstream and downstream industries, and extend the industrial chain; accelerate the development of non-coal industries such as new energy and the processing industry of agricultural and animal husbandry products, so as to diversify the industry.
At the same time, as an important industrial town and a thousand-year-old capital, Luoyang's industrial base and cultural accumulation are also not lacking in advantages. From "Roselle Water Endowment" to "Dragon Gate King Kong" to "Wind Rises Luoyang", "Luoyang IP" has been out of the circle again and again, and also let the outside world see the potential of Luoyang culture.
Not long ago, the "14th Five-Year Plan for high-quality development of manufacturing industry in Henan Province" clearly proposed to promote the reconstruction of manufacturing advantages in the sub-central cities of Luoyang Central Plains Urban Agglomeration, gather advanced production factors, stimulate the internal motivation of large enterprises in large courtyards, promote the high-level grafting of traditional industries and key breakthroughs in emerging industries, and create an influential equipment manufacturing base in the country.
In addition, the Zhengzhou Luo (Yang) West (An) High-quality Development Cooperation Belt will also be built. In Miao Changhong's view, in the context of Zheng Luoxi's high-quality cooperation belt, if we can focus on the agglomeration of innovative resources and equipment manufacturing and other advantageous industries, and enhance our strategic space, the potential is still very large.
"In the new round of urban competition, there are opportunities and challenges. The key is to see which city can better adapt to the new stage of development and exert its hub capacity in the new pattern. Miao Changhong said.
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