Is it the next "Su Xichang"?

Hangzhou and Ningbo, why are they vying to "woo" Shaoxing

The inter-city rail transit is coming one after another, bringing the cities in the Yangtze River Delta closer and closer, and it is also a new key player in the competition between major metropolitan areas.

A few days ago, the "Ningbo Rail Transit Network Plan (2021-2035)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Plan") was announced. One of the highlights is that 4 of the 16 rail transit routes planned in the city's long-term plan involve Shaoxing.

Before that, Shaoxing people could have taken the subway to visit Hangzhou West Lake. There is Hangzhou in the front, Ningbo in the back, and Zhejiang, two trillion cities, why do they all build the subway to Shaoxing?

According to the explanation of the local media, this move is the consensus of Zhejiang Province to "sew" the radiation radius of the Hangzhou-Ningbo industry.

Driven by the "Tale of Two Cities" in Hangzhou and Ningbo, Shaoxing's economic growth rate has stood out in the province in recent years, constantly leaving Jiaxing and approaching Wenzhou. After Hangzhou and Ningbo, the suspense of Zhejiang's "third pole" has resurfaced.

Looking at the Yangtze River Delta, Changzhou, which is also the "C position" of cross-city rail transit, is expected to enter the "GDP trillion club" this year and promote the energy level of the Suzhou-Wuxi-Changzhou metropolitan area. In the future, on the big stage of the integration of the Yangtze River Delta, can "Hangshaoyong" join forces to become the next "Suzhou-Xichang"?

01

This year marks the fifth anniversary of the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta as a national strategy. As two important economic cities in Zhejiang and even the Yangtze River Delta, Hangzhou and Ningbo have attracted much attention on how to sing the "Tale of Two Cities".

The Asian Games have brought new opportunities to promote the "Tale of Two Cities". Looking at Hangzhou's borrowing of the camp city, Ningbo's sense of urgency is even greater. On November 27, the Ningbo Municipal Party and Government Delegation came to Hangzhou to learn the concept and experience of Hangzhou's reform and development, and also discussed with the local party and government leadership the new idea of Hangzhou-Ningbo "co-cityization".

Joining forces to shape the industrial highland is an important theme of Hangzhou-Ningbo's "Tale of Two Cities". However, local media in Zhejiang pointed out that the radiation radius of Hangzhou is basically in the area of Zhuji, Shaoxing, while the radiation radius of Ningbo is in the area of Shangyu, Xinchang and Shengzhou in Shaoxing.

Image source: Beijing News

The key hub is Shaoxing.

"It has been Zhejiang's strategy in recent years to polish the 'Golden South Wing' of the Yangtze River Delta and focus on supporting the south shore of Hangzhou Bay from Hangzhou, Shaoxing, Ningbo to Zhoushan. Zeng Gang, dean of the Urban Development Research Institute of East China Normal University, told Uncle Cheng that the southern shore of Hangzhou Bay, including Hangzhou Shaoyong, is regarded by Zhejiang as the core support for the further strong rise of the country in the future.

At the top-level design level, Zhejiang began to continuously promote Hangzhou Shaoyong to get closer. In 2018, the work report of the Zhejiang Provincial Government put forward the idea of "promoting the integrated development of Hangzhou and Ningbo" for the first time, and since then, the keyword "Hangzhou, Shaoyong" has been continuously mentioned for four consecutive years.

In 2020, Zhejiang issued the "Implementation Plan for the Integrated Development of Hangzhou, Shaoxing and Ningbo" to fully promote the formation of an integrated development pattern of infrastructure interconnection, smooth flow of innovative elements, and sharing of public service quality among the three cities. In June last year, the report of the Zhejiang Provincial Party Congress further mentioned: sing the "Tale of Two Cities" of Hangzhou and Ningbo, cultivate national central cities, promote Ningbo and Zhoushan to build a marine center city, and support Shaoxing to build a network city.

According to Shaoxing's vision, to build a large network city, there are two networks that are very important: one is the transportation network, and the other is the industrial network. Hangzhou is the aviation center of Zhejiang, and Ningbo is the maritime hub of the province. In recent years, Shaoxing has joined hands with Hangzhou to develop the airport economy, and at the same time, it has joined hands with Ningbo to go to sea along the port.

At the same time, the intercity rail transit between Hangzhou, Shaoxing and Ningbo is accelerating towards breakthrough. According to the content of the plan, the long-term rail transit routes in Ningbo include the Yongjiang Kechuang Branch Line and Xikou Branch Line of Line 9, the N3 Yuyao Simen-Cixi Xiaolin Line, and the N4 Yuyao Mazhu-Cixi Yangming Line.

Image source: Ningbo Rail Transit Network Planning (2021-2035)

Faster than Ningbo, Hangzhou took the lead in repairing the subway to Shaoxing. On June 28, 2021, the Hangzhou-Shaoxing Intercity Railway (i.e., the Keqiao Section of Shaoxing Rail Transit Line 1) was opened to traffic. Last year, after the opening of the main line of Shaoxing Metro Line 1 and the Keqiao section of Line 1, Hangzhou and Shaoxing realized the subway interconnection in the city center.

According to the "14th Five-Year Plan for the Comprehensive Transportation Development of Shaoxing", Shaoxing will also actively promote the construction of new rail transit lines between Hangzhou and Shaoxing. It is expected that in the future, the integrated rail transit network of Hangzhou, Shaoxing and Ningbo is expected to be completed and continue to be dense.

02

With the integration of Hangzhou, Shaoxing and Ningbo, the economic pattern in Zhejiang Province may change.

Image source: Shaoxing release (photo by Cai Haijiang)

Sandwiched between Hangzhou and Ningbo, Shaoxing was once the most embarrassing city in Zhejiang, and its GDP growth rate once ranked last among all cities in Zhejiang in 2016. However, in the past few years, Shaoxing's economic growth has increased significantly. In the first three quarters of 2021, 2022 and 2023, Shaoxing's economic growth rate will be 8.7%, 4.4% and 7.8% respectively, 0.2, 1.3 and 1.5 percentage points higher than that of the province respectively.

An important change is that Shaoxing seems to be coming out of the stage of being "siphoned". Yang Hongxiang and others from the Party School of the Shaoxing Municipal Party Committee found that from the data and information of cross-city investment of enterprises, after 2018, the new investment of Hangzhou and Ningbo in Shaoxing exceeded Shaoxing's investment in Hangzhou and Ningbo. Shaoxing has passed the stage of being "siphoned" by Hangzhou and Ningbo, and has a high degree of industrial relevance with Hangzhou and a rapid improvement rate, and a low degree of industrial relevance with Ningbo, but it is also slowly improving. At the same time, Hangzhou's producer service industry has formed a matching and support for the first echelon of manufacturing cities in Zhejiang Province, including Shaoxing.

More critically, in the first three quarters of 2021, 2022, and 2023, Shaoxing's economic growth rate will also exceed that of Wenzhou and Jiaxing, which are similar in the province. Shaoxing's economic data this year is more eye-catching, in terms of GDP, industrial added value above the designated size, total social consumption, total import and export growth rate, all exceed Wenzhou, Jiaxing two cities.

Behind Wenzhou, Shaoxing is trying to catch up. Wind data shows that in 2020, the GDP gap between Shaoxing and Wenzhou once widened to 86.99 billion yuan, and by 2022, it has narrowed to 67.88 billion yuan;

From the trend point of view, the competition between Wenzhou, Shaoxing and Jiaxing has increased the variables of Zhejiang's "third city". In Zeng Gang's view, Jiaxing has the geographical advantage of being close to Shanghai, but it is not on the Hangzhou-Ningbo development axis, which is the key development of Zhejiang, and the economic scale is still small, which is not enough to impact the "third city" of Zhejiang.

Wenzhou, on the one hand, is limited by the location conditions that are gradually marginalized in the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta, and the extensive development path of selling products to the world at low cost in the past is also unsustainable in the current technology-driven market. As for Shaoxing, when the center of gravity of Hangzhou's economic development shifts eastward, from the "West Lake Era" to the "Hangzhou Bay Era", Hangzhou's connectivity and radiation to Shaoxing will be improved.

Zeng Gang believes that with the advancement of the development of Hangzhou Bay, it is a high probability event that Shaoxing will surpass Wenzhou in the future. He suggested that if Wenzhou wants to reverse this situation, it should not only give full play to the advantages of wealth accumulation in the early stage and the vast number of Wenzhou business groups scattered abroad, but also build an enclave economy with Hangzhou, Shanghai and even Beijing, and upgrade products and business models. At the same time, it is also necessary to introduce more scientific research institutions to make up for the shortcomings of scientific and technological innovation capabilities.

03

As far as Shaoxing is concerned, being between Hangzhou and Ningbo, in the face of the siphon of the two major cities, it has been trying to turn "east and west" into "left and right".

In the competition in the Yangtze River Delta, there is the siphoning trend of the Shanghai metropolitan area, and there is the worry of the "pinching" of the Suzhou-Wuxi-Changzhou metropolitan area. Zeng Gang believes that Zhejiang's support for the south shore of Hangzhou Bay is precisely because of this development need.

With the help of Shaoxing's "Golden Flat Dan", Hangzhou and Ningbo can be more closely connected, and the role of "Golden Flat Dan" can be more prominent. Some media commented that in the future, with the acceleration of the construction of transportation infrastructure and the continuous strengthening of industrial synergy, Zhejiang's "Hangshaoyong" may also become a habitual fixed phrase like Jiangsu's "Su Xichang".

In Zeng Gang's view, at present, policies to promote the development and growth of the private economy have been intensively introduced, and the explosive power of the Hangzhou-Shaoyong region should not be underestimated by virtue of the advantages of the level and activity of the private economy.

According to the list of the top 100 private enterprises in Zhejiang in 2023, the top 100 private enterprises in Zhejiang are mainly concentrated in Hangzhou, Shaoyong and Ningbo, including 38 in Hangzhou, 16 in Ningbo, and 11 in Shaoxing, ranking among the top three in the province, accounting for 65% of the province.

Zeng Gang said for example, a number of private enterprises in Hangzhou Shaoyong, relying on their own flexible technology transformation and application and management mechanism, cut into the local rare earth, graphite and other new material industries that do not have resource advantages from the processing link, and grew into a national-level specialized, special and new "little giant" enterprise.

Looking at the Hangzhou-Shaoxing-Ningbo region, there are many examples of Hangzhou's digital economy advantages empowering the transformation and upgrading of Ningbo and Shaoxing's manufacturing industries. For example, the "brain of the chemical industry", which is supported by Hangzhou enterprises, has covered Jiucheng Chemical Industry Park in Zhejiang Province.

"The south shore of Hangzhou Bay will definitely develop very fast in the next five to ten years. In this sense, the recent development speed of Hangshaoyong should be faster than that of southern Jiangsu. Zeng Gang believes that the economic size and influence of Hangzhou Shaoyong will continue to move closer to Suzhou, Xichang.

But Hang Shaoyong's shortcomings are also obvious. Zeng Gang reminded that in terms of cooperation with Shanghai, Su Xi is often closer than Hangzhou Shaoyong. In the construction of the subway, Suzhou's first urban rail transit line chose to connect to Shanghai rather than other neighboring cities in the province. In addition, the recent release of the integrated development plan of rail transit in the Suzhou-Wuxi-Changzhou metropolitan area will accelerate the integration of Suzhou-Wuxi-Changzhou rail transit and will further connect with Shanghai.

Zeng Gang believes that in the long run, in addition to strengthening the "small circle" of the same city within Zhejiang, it should also open up the "big circle" outward and further strengthen the interaction with Shanghai, the central city of the Yangtze River Delta. The competition between cities is to chase after me, but when the pattern is opened, we can learn from each other's strengths and weaknesses and show our strengths together on a larger stage.

Text | Liu Xuqiang

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