The size and prosperity of coastal cities does not mean that there are no wonderful and wonderful here.
On January 10, 2022, at the Qitaihe Sports Center, the children of the Qitaihe Vocational College Short Track Speed Skating Training Center were training. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Zhang Tao
Text | Ke Rui, chief researcher of Xinjing Think Tank
"The moonlight sprinkles on the ice, lighting up the dreams in the hearts of generations, a group of struggling young boys, spreading their wings and flying like eagles... The wish of a small townman is to let the champion corridor decorate the north..."
Recently, Qitaihe City, Heilongjiang Province, released the theme song of "Welcoming the Winter Olympics".
From this song, people can feel the dream and glory of the Olympic champion in this small city.
1 Behind the "Hometown of Winter Olympic Champions"
QitaiHe, also known as Coal City. Located in the east of Heilongjiang, the population is less than 1 million.
On the evening of February 5, Fan Kexin from Qitaihe City and his teammates won the short track speed skating mixed team relay championship at the Beijing Winter Olympics, which was the first gold of the Chinese delegation at the Winter Olympics.
Fan Kexin (left) from the Chinese team at the match on February 5, 2022. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Lan Hongguang
At their home in Qitaihe City, 1,350 kilometers from Beijing, Fan Kexin's parents watched the race and witnessed this important moment.
In fact, according to the "China Qitaihe" website sponsored by the Qitaihe Municipal People's Government, the city is a "national key high-level sports reserve talent base", and has trained 10 world short track speed skating champions such as Zhang Jie, Yang Yang and Wang Meng, and won a total of 169 world-class gold medals. Among them, there are 6 gold medals in the short track speed skating Winter Olympics, accounting for two-thirds of the total number of gold medals in China's short track speed skating Winter Olympics.
However, this is an industrial city born of coal and prospered from coal. But the city's dreams are not limited to coal.
Ice and snow sports such as short track speed skating have brought them passion and dreams.
Qitaihe's short-track speed skating career began in the early 1970s.
At that time, from a humble local stadium, people began to find their dreams in this competition.
Interestingly, in the northeast, many cities have long winters and rich ice and snow resources, but in short-track speed skating and other projects, the front is not other cities with large economies, or even provincial capitals such as Harbin, but Qitaihe.
This may be related to Qitaihe's early start in this regard and "conscious consciousness".
According to reports, the early ice athletes of Qitaihe lived under the simple stadium stands in the winter, and since there was no indoor ice rink at that time, everyone poured ice on the open space outside the stadium during the day.
With the athletes' repeated successes in the event, short track speed skating, from the initial entertainment pastime, gradually entered the mainstream track.
Skaters skate at an ice rink in Taoshan District, Qitaihe City, on January 12, 2022. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Xie Jianfei
From provincial championships to national competitions to the Olympic Games, Qitaihe has achieved one result after another in skating.
In 1986, at the age of 11, Yang Yang entered the Qitaihe City Sports School and began her sports life.
At the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Yang Yang won the gold medal in the women's short track speed skating 500 meters at the Winter Olympics, becoming China's first Winter Olympic champion.
After Yang Yang, this small city was also full of talents.
Today, the short-track speed skating facilities in Qitaihe have long been "shotgun for cannon".
In 2013, Qitaihe ended decades of history without indoor ice rinks; in 2019, the Qitaihe Vocational College Short Track Speed Skating Training Center was established to train outstanding short track speed skating athletes...
Qitaihe has also won the reputation of "hometown of Chinese Winter Olympic Champions", "Hometown of Chinese Short Track Speed Skating", "Cradle of Winter Olympic Champions" and so on.
2 Reverse the economic cliff-like downward trend
On China's economic map, located in the remote Qitaihe River, the economic volume can be described as weak.
In 2021, the GDP of Qitaihe was 23.14 billion yuan, ranking 12th among the 13 urban areas in the province, only higher than the daxinganling area at the end.
The volume of more than 23 billion yuan is obviously not the same as that of Suzhou, Dongguan and other eastern star cities that belong to the same prefecture-level city administrative level, and the GDP of Qitaihe is almost less than a fraction of that of these cities.
As a northeastern city, Qitaihe faces problems such as relatively slow economic development.
In 2020, the added value of industries above designated size in Qitaihe City fell by 16.3% compared with the previous year. Among them, the added value of coal mining and washing industry decreased by 22.5% over the previous year, and the added value of petroleum, coal and other fuel processing industries fell by 4.1% over the previous year. The operating income of industrial enterprises above designated size in the city fell by 9.7% over the previous year, and the total profit decreased by 220 million yuan compared with the previous year.
Although it was in the context of the new crown epidemic, the economic performance at that time was indeed not optimistic.
However, by 2021, the economic operation of Qitaihe City will enter a stable recovery trend. In terms of fixed asset investment, from January to July 2021, the city's fixed asset investment increased by 57.6% year-on-year, 46.3 percentage points higher than the provincial average (11.3%), ranking first in the province. By industry, investment in the primary industry increased by 18.1% year-on-year; investment in the secondary industry increased by 57.6% year-on-year, of which industrial investment increased by 57.6% year-on-year; investment in the tertiary industry increased by 74.6% year-on-year. It can be seen that the investment in the tertiary industry has grown rapidly.
Recently, the 2022 Qitaihe Municipal Government Work Report pointed out that there are still many difficulties and problems in development, including small economic aggregates, large financial pressure, and comprehensive strength that needs to be enhanced; the pace of industrial transformation and upgrading is not fast, the proportion of non-coal industries is low, and emerging industries are underdeveloped.
Obviously, enlarging the total economic volume is still an important issue facing Qitaihe City.
However, the fact that the Qitai River does not have the size and prosperity of coastal cities does not mean that there are no wonderful and miraculous places here.
In 2021, the nominal GDP growth rate of Qitaihe will be higher than the average growth rate of the province.
The 2022 Qitaihe Municipal Government Work Report proposes, "The year 2021 that has just passed is the most severe and complex year in the history of our city. In the past year, the whole city has lifted its spirits, faced difficulties, anchored its goals, jumped up and touched high, and successfully reversed the economic cliff-like decline since 2020. ”
Reversing the economic cliff-like downward trend, the tertiary industry has undoubtedly made an important contribution. The successful reversal of this trend is a critical turning point for a developing city.
3 The "ice and snow economy" is still a game-breaking hand
For the development of the next 5 years, the 2022 Qitaihe Municipal Government Work Report also depicts a blueprint.
This blueprint mentions that we should adhere to the road of stabilizing the coal foundation, transformation and development, ecological priority, green and low-carbon high-quality development, deeply implement the industrial revitalization project, and strive to create a "53211" industrial cluster with an output value of 50 billion coal and coal chemical industry, 30 billion biomedicine, 20 billion agricultural and livestock product processing, 10 billion manufacturing and remanufacturing, 10 billion new materials and new energy, so as to expand the total economic volume, optimize the quality of the economy, and promote the transformation and revitalization development to achieve new breakthroughs.
On January 11, 2022, at the Qitaihe Sports Center, the coach and children hugged after the training. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Zhang Tao
The target for the next five years also includes an average annual growth rate of more than 5.5% in regional GDP and an average annual growth rate of 6.0% and 8.0% for urban and rural permanent residents.
The report said, "As long as we give full play to our potential advantages, seize rare opportunities, and continue to work hard, we will certainly be able to break the situation that GDP has always hovered around 20 billion yuan and break through the 30 billion yuan mark!" ”
The report also proposes that the development of modern service industries will be accelerated in 2022. Promote the deep integration of the cultural tourism industry. Call out the brand of "the hometown of the world's winter Olympic champions and the city of Leisure Sports in China". Promote the vigorous development of sports. Promote the short track speed skating "provincial team and municipal office" to a new level, build a national short track speed skating project training and transfer training base, actively push outstanding athletes and coaches to the province and the country, undertake national and provincial events, and further polish the "Hometown of Winter Olympic Champions" golden signboard.
Obviously, making full use of the advantages of regional and ecological resources, focusing on the ice and snow sports industry and the eco-tourism industry, continuing to do enough work in short-track speed skating projects, the "hometown of winter Olympic champions" and other aspects, vigorously developing the "ice and snow economy" and creating an "ice and snow industry", is a powerful hand to give full play to the advantages of natural resource endowments of the Qitaihe River, and then to build its own development comparative advantages, and is also an important measure to further optimize the industrial structure in the future economic development of the Qitaihe River.
As long as you find the right development method for yourself, there is reason to believe that the future of Qitaihe will be more exciting.
Edit | Zha Zhiyuan
Proofreading | Wu Xingfa
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Xinjing Think Tank
Xinjing Think Tank is a new media think tank established on the Beijing News platform, we focus on our own location advantages based on Beijing, serving Beijing, facing the whole country and looking at the world. In terms of national policy interpretation, "four-dimensional integration" resource docking of political, business, and media, urban case studies and brand communication, it produces works and research results with high specialization and global influence, and provides first-class intellectual support for governments, enterprises and industry institutions.