Except for municipalities directly under the central government, provincial capital cities, and planned cities, some ordinary prefecture level cities also have strong economic development, which plays an important driving and leading role in regional economic development.
After sorting out the GDP of major ordinary prefecture level cities in 2023, a reporter from First Financial News found that a total of 17 prefecture level cities exceeded the 700 billion mark in 2023, of which 8 prefecture level cities exceeded the trillion mark, namely Suzhou, Wuxi, Foshan, Quanzhou, Nantong, Dongguan, Changzhou, and Yantai, an increase of two compared to the previous year. The two new cities were Changzhou and Yantai. These 8 cities all come from the eastern coastal region.
Among them, Suzhou’s GDP reached 2465.34 billion yuan in 2023, far ahead of prefecture level cities and ranking sixth among all cities in China, only behind the four first tier cities of Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and the directly administered municipality of Chongqing. Suzhou is also known as the “most impressive prefecture level city”.
In recent years, Suzhou has achieved remarkable results in transformation and upgrading. Data shows that in 2023, Suzhou was shortlisted for 401 national specialized, refined, and new “Little Giant” enterprises, with the number of enterprises jumping to the fourth place in the country and ranking first in the province. Among 401 specialized, refined, and innovative enterprises, there are 2, 49, and 338 enterprises with output values of tens of billions, billions, and billions, respectively. Among them, billion level enterprises account for 84.3%, which is 44.6 percentage points higher than that of large-scale industries (39.7%).
Associate Professor Ding Changfa from the Department of Economics at Xiamen University analyzed that in recent years, Suzhou has been at the forefront of economic transformation and upgrading in prefecture level cities. Suzhou’s manufacturing industry is very developed, including biopharmaceuticals, integrated circuits, artificial intelligence, and other industries. In the process of manufacturing upgrading, the scale of research and development investment is very large, and the development of high-tech and emerging industries is very prominent.
After Suzhou, another city in southern Jiangsu, Wuxi, achieved a GDP of 1.5 trillion yuan for the first time in 2023. In recent years, Wuxi has proposed the strategic positioning of “building a domestic first-class and internationally influential industrial technology innovation highland”. In 2023, the city achieved a high-tech industry output value of 1331.831 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 8.5%, accounting for 52.3% of the total output value of industries above designated size.
Foshan, a manufacturing city on the west bank of the the Pearl River, had a GDP of 1327.614 billion yuan last year, ranking third among prefecture level cities. As a major manufacturing city, Foshan’s industry has accelerated its upgrading in recent years. In 2023, the number of high-tech enterprises in Foshan city exceeded 10000.
After Foshan, Quanzhou, Nantong, and Dongguan ranked fourth to sixth in GDP among prefecture level cities in 2023. Compared with the previous year, the number of prefecture level cities with GDP exceeding one trillion yuan has increased to 8, two more than the previous year. The two newly added cities are Changzhou and Yantai.
Among them, Changzhou, located in the southern region of Jiangsu, has a strong industrial manufacturing foundation. On the basis of a complete range of industrial categories and a complete industrial system, the rise of Changzhou’s new energy industry has played a major role in recent years.
Data shows that in 2023, Changzhou achieved a manufacturing output value of 768.07 billion yuan in the field of new energy, an increase of 15.0%, contributing 98.9% to the growth of industrial output value above designated size in the city; The output value of new energy vehicles, new power equipment, and photovoltaic industries increased by 126.6%, 11.0%, and 6.1%, respectively. The production of new energy vehicles reached 678000 units, the production of charging stations increased by 59.2%, the production of power cables increased by 40.7%, the production of solar cells increased by 21.9%, the production of ultra white glass for solar industry increased by 19.6%, and the production of lithium-ion power batteries for automobiles increased by 14.1%.
Yantai is the first ordinary prefecture level city in the northern region to exceed the trillion yuan GDP mark. According to media reports, currently, the two industries of green petrochemicals, non-ferrous and precious metals in Yantai have exceeded 200 billion yuan, while the four industries of automobiles, high-end equipment, electronic information, and food deep processing have exceeded 100 billion yuan. The three industrial clusters of biomedicine, clean energy, and aerospace are developing rapidly, and the modern industrial structure is accelerating.
After Changzhou and Yantai, several prefecture level cities have also reached the stage of sprinting towards a trillion yuan GDP. Among them, Tangshan’s GDP in 2023 has exceeded 900 billion yuan, reaching 913.33 billion yuan. Xuzhou achieved a GDP of 890.044 billion yuan in 2023, while Wenzhou achieved a GDP of 873.063 billion yuan in 2023.
Shaoxing, Weifang, Yangzhou, Yancheng, Jiaxing, and Yulin are currently in the 700 billion tier. Among them, Yulin, a major energy city, achieved a regional GDP of 709.144 billion yuan in 2023, making it the first ordinary prefecture level city in the central and western regions to break through the 700 billion yuan mark in GDP.
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