◇In 2023, northern Anhui will achieve a GDP of 1.44 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.8%, which is the same as the growth rate of the whole province, and for the first time since the "13th Five-Year Plan", it has caught up with the pace of development of the province
◇In April this year, Anhui once again focused on the revitalization of northern Anhui and held a promotion meeting, clarifying the "methods", "footwork" and "tactics" to realize the comprehensive revitalization of northern Anhui, with the "synchronization of the four modernizations" as the base thinking, with new energy vehicles and parts, new materials, new energy and green food four key industrial clusters as the four major corps, policies, projects, technology, capital, and talents intensively "injected" to fight a "positional battle".
Text: "Lookout" Newsweek reporter Liu Jing, Ma Shurui, Wu Huijun
A corner of the production workshop of Anhui Jixiang Sanbao Hi-Tech New Materials Co., Ltd. Photo by Gao Bin
In August 2020, Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee, President of the People's Republic of China, and Chairman of the Central Military Commission, presided over a symposium on solidly promoting the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta in Hefei, pointing out that the momentum of high-quality development in underdeveloped regions should be enhanced. An important purpose of integration is to address the imbalance in regional development. The development gap is often the development space. Relevant departments should introduce and implement more precise measures for underdeveloped areas to promote these regions to keep up with the pace of integrated and high-quality development of the Yangtze River Delta. Realizing the comprehensive revitalization of the underdeveloped areas of northern Anhui has always been one of the strategic tasks related to the overall development of Anhui. The northern Anhui region covers 6 prefecture-level cities in Anhui Province, including Huaibei, Bozhou, Suzhou, Bengbu, Fuyang and Huainan, as well as 4 counties (cities) of Dingyuan, Fengyang, Mingguang and Huoqiu in Lu'an City, Chuzhou City, with business cards such as "Central Plains Granary", "Lianghuai Coalfield" and "Chinese Medicine Capital", and is an important plate in the integrated development pattern of Anhui and the Yangtze River Delta. In 2023, the GDP growth rate of northern Anhui will catch up with the pace of the province for the first time since the "13th Five-Year Plan". Compared with itself, northern Anhui is developing, and in the overall situation, the gap still exists. The urbanization rate is 10.5 percentage points lower than the provincial average, the proportion of the province's total economic output in the province has decreased by 0.7 percentage points compared with the 11th Five-Year Plan, and the per capita disposable income of residents in 2022 will be 86.2% of the province's. Without the modernization of northern Anhui, there will be no modernization of Anhui. Over the past 20 years, Anhui has held at least 8 meetings at the provincial level and issued 4 provincial-level "10 points" policies to promote the development of northern Anhui. Following the 2021 National Development and Reform Commission and Anhui Province jointly held the Conference on Enhancing the High-quality Development Momentum of the Yangtze River Delta Underdeveloped Regions and Promoting the Construction of Industrial Transfer Agglomeration Areas in Northern Anhui, in April this year, Anhui once again focused on the revitalization of Northern Anhui and held the Northern Anhui Key Industrial Cluster Construction Promotion Conference. The meeting further clarified the "methods", "footwork" and "tactics" to achieve the comprehensive revitalization of northern Anhui, with the "synchronization of the four modernizations" as the base thinking, with new energy vehicles and parts, new materials, new energy and green food four key industrial clusters as the four major corps, policies, projects, technology, capital, and talents intensively "injected" to fight a "positional battle". Comprehensive revitalization, Anhui is running in northern Anhui. By 2020, the Huai River Basin, with northern Anhui as the main region, will produce about 18% of the country's grain and feed 11.6% of the country's population with 2.8% of the country's land area. However, the population loss in the process of urbanization, the "partial agriculture and lack of labor" in the industrial structure, and the difficulty in transformation and upgrading have made northern Anhui still in a relatively backward position in the high-quality development pattern. In 2023, the per capita GDP of northern Anhui will only be equivalent to the level of the Yangtze River Delta in 2010, and the GDP of the six cities in northern Anhui will account for 27.4% of the whole province, of which the output value of the secondary industry will account for 24.4% of the province, and the output value of strategic emerging industries will only account for 13.4%. One of the important tasks of the integration of the Yangtze River Delta is to solve the problem of development momentum in underdeveloped regions. For Anhui, this is an important strategic opportunity to accelerate the revitalization of northern Anhui. As early as 2001, Anhui Province set up a coordination group to accelerate the development of northern Anhui, and over the past 20 years, it has successively introduced four provincial-level "10" policies, as well as a series of measures such as north-south twinning cooperation. In September 2020, the National Development and Reform Commission issued the "Several Policies and Measures to Promote the Construction of Industrial Transfer Agglomeration Areas in Northern Anhui", and at the end of 2021, it issued the "Implementation Plan for Twinning Cooperation between Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang Cities to Help Northern Anhui Cities". The Fifth Plenary Session of the 11th Anhui Provincial Party Committee held in July 2023 clearly regarded the promotion of the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta and the comprehensive revitalization of northern Anhui as two major events that must be grasped well, and formulated a timetable: by 2027, northern Anhui will keep up with the pace of development of the province. A series of policies have been continuously strengthened, and the comprehensive strength of northern Anhui has continued to "climb". In 2023, northern Anhui will achieve a GDP of 1.44 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.8%, the same as the growth rate of the whole province, and catch up with the pace of development of the province for the first time since the "13th Five-Year Plan". By 2023, Shanghai, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang will all be listed in 3, 5, and 2 cooperative parks jointly built by "hand in hand" with northern Anhui, injecting new momentum for development. The roadmap focuses on the "gap" in development, uses good "tactics", and opens up high-quality "space". An annual output of 80,000 tons of aluminum castings new energy green casting project, an annual output of 100,000 tons of new energy materials and lithium derivatives recycling comprehensive project, an annual output of 10,000 beef cattle and an annual slaughter of 100,000 beef cattle and other industrial chain projects...... On April 19, at the meeting to promote the construction of key industrial clusters in northern Anhui held in Bengbu City, 11 investment projects and 9 financing projects were signed on the spot, opening a new round of industrial upgrading in northern Anhui. "Northern Anhui should give full play to the advantages of being a latecomer, and not take the long road of catching up, the key is to adhere to the development of new industrialization, informatization, urbanization, and agricultural modernization, and highlight the new industrialization. At the above-mentioned promotion meeting, Wang Qingxian, governor of Anhui Province, expounded the "tactics" of the comprehensive revitalization of northern Anhui. At the promotion meeting, the "Action Plan for Promoting the Breakthrough of New Energy Automobile and Parts Industry in Northern Anhui (2024-2027)", "Plan for the Agglomeration and Development of New Material Industry in Northern Anhui", "Action Plan for the High-quality Development of New Energy Industry in Northern Anhui (2024-2027)" and "Implementation Plan for the Construction of Green Food Industry Cluster in Northern Anhui" were released at the same time. The 2024 Anhui Provincial Government Work Report has made a detailed deployment for the new industrialization of northern Anhui: focusing on the construction of key industrial clusters such as automobiles and parts, new energy, new materials, and green food, and striving to quickly form scale advantages and competitive advantages in northern Anhui. "There are opportunities in the industry, and there are conditions in northern Anhui", which is the market logic of Anhui to promote the revitalization of northern Anhui with the construction of four key industrial clusters. In 2023, Anhui Province's automobile production will reach 2.491 million units, ranking second in the country, and the output of new energy vehicles will reach 868,000 units, rising to the fourth place in the country. Northern Anhui is likely to become the next growth pole of Anhui's automobile "first industry". There are nearly 1,000 automobile industry chain enterprises in northern Anhui, and 106 parts and components enterprises are first-class suppliers of vehicle enterprises inside and outside the province, and have good basic conditions for integrating into the Yangtze River Delta automobile industry layout. In 2023, the revenue of the automobile industry chain in the four cities of Huaibei, Suzhou, Bozhou, and Fuyang will grow by more than 17% year-on-year. In January ~ February this year, the revenue of industrial enterprises in the automobile industry chain in Bozhou, Suzhou and Huainan increased by more than 50% year-on-year. "Under the layout of the province's automobile industry, Hefei and Wuhu will play a leading role in promoting leading enterprises in the automotive field to strengthen cooperation with northern Anhui, strengthen industrial chain coordination, and add momentum to the high-quality development of new energy vehicles and parts industry in northern Anhui. Chen Jun, director of the Anhui Provincial Development and Reform Commission, said. According to the plan, with the development of special vehicle agglomeration, the transformation and upgrading of parts, and the improvement of quality and efficiency of the aftermarket as a breakthrough, by 2025, the scale of the new energy automobile industry in northern Anhui will strive to exceed 180 billion yuan, accounting for more than 15% of the province, and by 2027, the scale of the new energy automobile industry in northern Anhui will exceed 330 billion yuan. With the in-depth transformation of the global energy system and the in-depth implementation of the "double carbon" strategy, the path of transformation to the new energy industry in northern Anhui is clearer. From the perspective of resource reserves, the developable resources of centralized photovoltaic in northern Anhui are 37.3 million kilowatts, accounting for about half of the province, and the developable resources of wind power are 40.18 million kilowatts, accounting for about 60% of the province; from the perspective of manufacturing capacity, the photovoltaic glass production capacity of Fengyang County accounts for about 21% of the country, and the annual output of recycled lead and batteries in Shoutai New Energy Industrial Park accounts for 50% and 20% of the country respectively; from the perspective of industrial potential, the total revenue of the new energy industry in northern Anhui will account for 21% of the province in 2023, and there are more than 150 photovoltaic storage enterprises, accounting for 24% of the province. Luo Hong, deputy director of the Anhui Provincial Department of Ecology and Environment, said that northern Anhui will build five major development clusters, including advanced photovoltaic, new energy storage, hydrogen energy, biomass energy, and resource recycling, and build a number of key parks such as Fengyang Economic and Technological Development Zone, Yingshang Economic and Technological Development Zone, Fuyang Economic and Technological Development Zone, and Shoutai New Energy Industrial Park. By around 2030, the above four industrial clusters are expected to contribute nearly 2 trillion yuan to the industrial scale of northern Anhui. On the economic map of Anhui, it is expected that a new type of industrialization will drive the simultaneous development of informatization, urbanization and agricultural modernization in northern Anhui. "The mastermind of the National Development and Reform Commission, the main construction of the special class, the main battle of the city and county", and the "footwork" implements the "tactics". The establishment of the "special class" system is the "secret" of the system and mechanism for the rapid rise of Anhui's industry in recent years, breaking the disadvantages of too many vertical levels and unpleasant horizontal coordination in the past industrial development process. In accordance with the working mechanism of "whistle-blowing by special classes and reporting by departments", special classes of various industries will specially build a working platform for attracting key industries in northern Anhui, and continuously push clues, import projects, and link resources for all parts of northern Anhui, so as to promote industrial development in a "list-style" manner.
On April 24, the staff of Anhui Jixiang Sanbao Hi-Tech New Materials Co., Ltd. demonstrated the flame retardant effect of "imitation goose down" structure high thermal flame retardant floc. The product has been transformed and put into production in the enterprise, with the advantages of light quality and warmth, high fluffiness, high resilience, soft and comfortable, etc., mainly for firefighters in alpine areas. The industrial ecology of the Dai Minzhi ecosystem is an indispensable "environment" for industrial agglomeration. For northern Anhui, the formation of industrial ecology cannot wait for natural evolution, and it is necessary to take support measures of "artificial breeding" to accelerate the coupling and convergence of various elements such as technology, industry, capital, and talents. In the exhibition hall of Anhui Jixiang Sanbao Hi-Tech New Materials Co., Ltd. in Jieshou City, in the northwest border of Anhui, a piece of floc is listed in an orderly manner, and a small yarn "fiber" drives industrial innovation. This is the company and the team of academician Yu Jianyong of Donghua University to develop an imitation goose down structure high thermal insulation floc, resistant to severe cold minus 40 degrees Celsius, the key performance indicators are better than the United States 3M company, breaking the long-term foreign technology monopoly, the first appearance in the Beijing Winter Olympics. Zhang Li, chairman of Anhui Jixiang Sanbao Hi-Tech New Materials Co., Ltd., said that the company has cooperated with more than 10 domestic universities and institutes to set up a research and development team, with 163 patents, and the output value is expected to reach 300 million yuan this year. The lack of innovation resources and the weak innovation foundation are the shortcomings of northern Anhui. Anhui gathers the province's resource elements to enhance the innovation ability of northern Anhui, and the "auspicious three treasures" is one of the beneficiary enterprises. In addition, Anhui has also promoted the docking and cooperation between cities in northern Anhui and strategic scientific and technological forces such as Hefei Comprehensive National Science Center and large scientific device clusters, and guided innovation service platforms such as Silicon Valley of the University of Science and Technology, the School of Science and Technology of China University of Science and Technology and the Antelope Industrial Internet to accelerate the layout of northern Anhui, and open up the "last mile" from scientific and technological innovation to industrial innovation. Not long ago, at a test site in Yuhui District, Bengbu City, with the supersonic tail flame and huge roar, the 70-ton "Longyun" liquid oxygen methane engine developed by Yunjian in Kyushu, Anhui Province completed the calibration test of the backup engine for suborbital flight missions, and will be delivered to the overall rocket unit in the near future. Accelerate the cultivation of new quality productivity, Bengbu City layout and development of aerospace information industry, open up new tracks, and cultivate new kinetic energy. The landing of the Kyushu Yunjian rocket engine project has brought about the settlement of three high-level talent teams. Through the implementation of the "flexible talent introduction" policy, Bengbu has signed strategic cooperation agreements with the University of Science and Technology of China and other institutes, and the city has built 42 postdoctoral research workstations, including 5 at the national level and 37 at the provincial level, and more than 20 universities and research institutes inside and outside the province such as Anhui University and Tongji University have carried out joint recruitment, and have recruited a total of 73 postdoctoral researchers. To release the "magnetic force" of talents in northern Anhui, Anhui will put the talent strategy in the overall consideration of the industrial pattern, and the special class for the construction of four key industrial clusters will actively guide the projects with leading talents and R&D teams to be laid out in northern Anhui, and promote the implementation of a number of industrial projects at the high end of the value chain by central enterprises and well-known private enterprises, bringing R&D institutions and high-end talents to gather in northern Anhui. The capital chain is the key link of the "four-chain integration". "Car Loan", "Live Cattle Loan", "Policy Loan", ...... In recent years, Anhui Province has continued to increase its fiscal and financial support for northern Anhui. Gu Jianfeng, director of the Anhui Provincial Department of Finance, said that the government will further innovate the investment methods of financial support for the development of key industries in northern Anhui, and comprehensively adopt loan discounts, financing guarantees, direct financial subsidies, fund investment, and tax incentives, so as to give better play to the role of financial funds and fully mobilize financial capital and social capital investment. The person in charge of the Anhui Provincial Local Financial Supervision and Administration Bureau said that it will continue to increase the supply of financial factor resources and support the agglomeration and development of key industries in northern Anhui. As of the end of March, the balance of loans in northern Anhui was 2,609.171 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 13.09%. In 2023, the scale of bond financing in northern Anhui will be 128.111 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 21.1%. Provincial-level related equity investment funds have set up 27 sub-funds in northern Anhui, with a total of 12.169 billion yuan, 8.586 billion yuan and 180 investment projects. In Anhui, the time has come to tighten the northern part of Anhui towards comprehensive revitalization, and it is bound to be successful.
Source: "Lookout" Review: Ma Xiangyu Editor: Li Xiang Proofreader: Xie Mingao