It was once jokingly called "the provincial capital city with the least sense of existence", but it has become the first city with population growth in 2023

China Visit Network Finance

2024-05-07 10:44Posted in Sichuan

It was once jokingly called "the provincial capital city with the least sense of existence", but it has become the first city with population growth in 2023

Hefei, once jokingly called one of the "provincial capitals with the least sense of existence in China", has a strong sense of presence in recent years.

The "Hefei model" has been vied by various places, and Hefei has also become the first city in terms of population growth in 2023. The director of the financial department of the Hefei Municipal Finance Bureau once said, "Every week, people from all over the country come to Hefei to exchange experience in project investment. ”

According to official data, Hefei's permanent population will reach 9.853 million in 2023, an increase of 219,000 compared with 2022, which even exceeds Changsha's "181,000 Chinese population increase in 2022", and far surpasses cities such as Hangzhou, Ningbo and Nanjing, becoming the new population growth champion.

Not only is the population number rising, but the quality of Hefei's population has also improved significantly. Statistics in 2023 show that more than 27,000 people out of every 100,000 people in Hefei have a university education, which is about 1.8 times the national average, and the number of R&D personnel per 10,000 employed people is more than 180, about twice that of the whole country. These figures fully demonstrate that Hefei's economic potential and scientific research and innovation strength have increased significantly, making the capital city of Anhui Province increasingly attractive to talents.

Hefei's population has grown strongly in recent years and is expected to continue to grow in the future. According to the Hefei Land and Space Master Plan (2021-2035) (public draft), by 2035, Hefei's permanent population is expected to exceed 13 million, and the actual service population will exceed 15 million, of which more than 93% of the population will live in cities and towns at all levels, and the population will exceed 12 million.

The counterattack road of the "big county".

In 2000, Hefei's GDP was less than 40 billion, ranking outside the 80th of the national cities, and it was ridiculed as a "big county town" by the outside world.

In 2011, Hefei's GDP was only 364.23 billion yuan, but by 2021, Hefei's total economic output reached 1.14 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 9.2%, ranking 19th in the country. This means that in the past 10 years, Hefei's economic growth has reached 213%, and in just a few decades, Hefei has achieved a magnificent transformation from a "county town" to a metropolis with a GDP of trillions at an astonishing speed.

How can Hefei, which is not near the sea or along the border, achieve a rapid economic rise and sit on the throne of the champion of population growth under the powerful siphon effect of the Yangtze River Delta? The answer lies in its unique "Hefei model" -- a development strategy of urban "investment banking".

In 2008, Hefei decided to suspend the construction of the subway, resolutely took out one-third of the financial revenue, risked investment in BOE, which had a falling market value and continuous losses at that time, and built the first 6th generation LCD panel production line in China. Today, BOE has grown into a giant with an annual revenue of 100 billion yuan and has become a landmark enterprise in Hefei.

In 2016, Hefei once again launched the Changxin memory chip independent manufacturing project with a total investment of up to 150 billion yuan, thus creating a new situation for the country in this field.

By 2020, Hefei Construction Investment and the third-level state-owned assets platform jointly raised 7 billion yuan to provide timely assistance to NIO in distress. Since then, with the entry of BYD, Volkswagen and other automotive giants and their supporting enterprises, Hefei is gradually rising as a "new energy vehicle capital".

Through this series of forward-looking investments and cooperation, Hefei has not only reaped considerable returns on investment, but also successfully promoted the expansion and upgrading of the local industrial chain.

Today, Hefei is known on the Internet as the "City of Venture Capital", which not only refers to its successful investment in industrial development, but also reflects Hefei's foresight in the field of education. In 1970, Hefei accepted the University of Science and Technology of China, which had to be relocated from Beijing. Later, this university, which encompassed the country's "talented teenagers", provided a steady stream of talent and intellectual support for the development of Hefei, so the introduction of USTC was also regarded by many as the "most valuable long-term investment" in the history of Hefei. Thanks to the full support of USTC, Hefei has made remarkable progress in basic research and scientific and technological innovation. In 2004, Hefei was approved by the Ministry of Science and Technology to become the country's first pilot city for scientific and technological innovation, and in 2017, Hefei went one step further and became the second comprehensive national science center city after Shanghai. In 2022, Hefei will occupy 8 seats among the 38 "national heavyweight" large scientific installations in the country, ranking first in the country in terms of number, surpassing 7 in Beijing and 5 in Shanghai. At the same time, Hefei also has 138 academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, as well as nearly 2 million talents of various types. It is worth mentioning that iFLYTEK, a leading enterprise in the field of AI in mainland China, was also born out of the University of Science and Technology of China.

The Midwest rises

In fact, almost all of the cities with the most rapid population growth in recent years are provincial capitals, and most of them are located in the Midwest.

Specifically, from 2021 to 2023, the champions of population growth are Wuhan, Changsha and Hefei, all of which are located in the central and western regions. Among these cities, Zhengzhou, Wuhan, Hefei and Chengdu are particularly outperforming, and their population growth has allowed them to rise in the national population rankings, even surpassing some of the more economically developed cities.

In 2023, Zhengzhou's permanent population will exceed 13 million for the first time, surpassing Suzhou's 12.958 million and successfully ranking among the top 10 most populous cities in the country. It's also worth noting that Wuhan's resident population has surpassed Tianjin's in the past few years, and Hefei's has surpassed Ningbo's, and both cities have maintained their sustained leads.

Even more striking is the demographic competition between Chengdu and Beijing. As a strong contender for the country's third-most populous city, Chengdu's population is rapidly approaching Beijing. In 2023, Chengdu's population reached 21.403 million, while Beijing's population was about 21.858 million. The population gap between the two countries has narrowed from a peak of more than 5 million to just 455,000.

Population growth is inextricably linked to the economic development of cities, and only economic development and the provision of sufficient jobs can attract and retain talent.

From 2000 to 2022, the economic share of the central and western regions increased from 20% and 17% to 22% and 21%, respectively. In addition, since 2010, half of the 10 cities with the fastest GDP growth among the major economic powerhouses and provincial capitals are located in the central and western regions, with the largest growth in Guiyang. This data fully demonstrates the economic vitality and development potential of the central and western regions, and it is these factors that promote the rapid population growth in these regions. (Content source: Huabo Business Review)

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