In addition to municipalities directly under the central government, cities with separate plans and provincial capitals, there are also some ordinary prefecture-level cities with very strong economic strength.
According to the statistics of the First Financial Reporter, the top ten ordinary prefecture-level cities with GDP in 2020 are Suzhou, Wuxi, Foshan, Quanzhou, Nantong, Dongguan, Yantai, Changzhou, Xuzhou and Tangshan. Among them, a total of five cities broke through the trillion yuan mark, and Suzhou broke through the 2 trillion yuan mark. In the top ten, Jiangsu Province accounted for half.
Table: Top Ten Prefecture-level Cities in GDP
Five cities have exceeded one trillion, and Suzhou is far ahead.
In 2020, the number of cities with GDP exceeding one trillion reached 23, an increase of 6 over the previous year. Among them, there are five ordinary prefecture-level cities that exceed the trillion yuan mark, an increase of two over the previous year, and the new entrants are Quanzhou and Nantong.
Among them, Suzhou, the "leader", is far ahead in prefecture-level cities, and its GDP is 1.6 times that of Wuxi, the second place. It is known as the most cattle prefecture-level city, and many indicators can be described as "invincible" in prefecture-level cities. According to the data of Suzhou Municipal Bureau of Statistics, the GDP in 2020 will reach 2,017.05 billion yuan, an increase of 3.4% over the previous year at comparable prices. This is also the sixth city in China whose GDP has exceeded 2 trillion yuan, and the only ordinary prefecture-level city that has exceeded 2 trillion yuan.
It is worth noting that in 2020, the contribution rate of Suzhou’s scientific and technological progress reached 66.5%, and the number of high-tech enterprises declared, recognized, net increased and effective reached a record high. At the end of the year, there were 9,772 effective high-tech enterprises, ranking fifth in the country and leading the new first-tier cities. At the same time, the city’s general public budget revenue reached 230.3 billion yuan, an increase of 3.7% over the previous year, ranking fourth among large and medium-sized cities in China for the first time.
Ding Changfa, an associate professor in the Department of Economics of Xiamen University, analyzed the first financial report. Suzhou is backed by Shanghai, and the spillover effect of Shanghai is particularly obvious. Strong scientific and educational resources and modern service industries have promoted the transformation and upgrading of Suzhou, Wuxi and other southern and central Jiangsu regions.
On the other hand, several county-level cities under the jurisdiction of Suzhou, such as Kunshan, Zhangjiagang and Changshu, have long been among the top 100 counties in China. Among them, Kunshan has been ranked first in the ranking of the top 100 counties and cities in China for more than ten years, and is known as "the strongest county in China". In 2020, the city’s GDP will be 427.68 billion yuan, and the current price growth rate will be 5.7%; The total industrial output value has historically reached a new level of one trillion yuan; The total retail sales of social consumer goods was 139.81 billion yuan; The actual utilization of foreign capital was US$ 1.05 billion, and the growth rate of 40.3% reached a new high in the past five years.
After Suzhou, Wuxi, also from southern Jiangsu, ranked second, and was in the echelon of 1.2 trillion yuan with cities with separate plans and provincial capitals such as Ningbo, Qingdao, Changsha and Zhengzhou. It is worth noting that in 2019, Wuxi’s per capita GDP ranked first among ordinary prefecture-level cities.
Foshan ranks third among ordinary prefecture-level cities, and ranks third after Shenzhen and Guangzhou, the first economic province. Foshan is a big industrial city in China, and its industrial output value ranks among the best in the country, with outstanding industrial economic strength in equipment manufacturing, household appliances, ceramic building materials and metal products.
Quanzhou and Nantong are the new cities that entered the trillion-dollar mark this year. The data shows that in 2020, Quanzhou’s GDP was 1,015.866 billion yuan, an increase of 2.9%. In the closing year of the Thirteenth Five-Year Plan, Quanzhou’s total economic output exceeded 1 trillion yuan for the first time, ranking first in Fujian for 22 consecutive years.
As an ordinary prefecture-level city, Quanzhou can overwhelm Fuzhou, the provincial capital, and Xiamen, a sub-provincial city and a city with separate plans, and become the first city with a GDP of one trillion yuan in Fujian, relying on a solid real economy and private economy. Ding Changfa said that a major feature of Quanzhou’s economic development is that the county economy is very developed, and the county economy has formed a very complete industrial chain. Jinjiang, Shishi, Nan’ an, Anxi and other places under its jurisdiction have outstanding flagship industries.
According to the data released by Nantong Municipal Bureau of Statistics, according to preliminary accounting, the city’s GDP for the whole year was 1,003.631 billion yuan, an increase of 4.7% at comparable prices, and the growth rate was 2.4 and 1.0 percentage points higher than that of the whole country and the whole province respectively. The GDP has exceeded one trillion yuan, which indicates that Nantong’s comprehensive strength and production capacity have reached a new level.
It is worth noting that in recent years, the net outflow of Nantong population has shown a decreasing trend year by year, which is formed by the combined effect of the decrease of the out-of-town population and the increase of the foreign population year by year. In 2020, the resident population will historically exceed the registered population.
Compared with Quanzhou and Nantong, Dongguan, which was expected to exceed one trillion yuan in 2020, was temporarily stranded due to various factors. In 2020, the GDP of Dongguan is 965.019 billion yuan, ranking sixth among ordinary prefecture-level cities.
Hu Gang, president of South China Urban Research Association and a professor at Jinan University, said that Dongguan has the highest degree of economic extroversion, and will be greatly impacted by the export-oriented economy in 2020. Affected by the epidemic, a large number of migrant workers found it difficult to return to their posts in the first quarter of 2020, and many orders could not be completed; After April, the export was blocked again. However, with the rebound of orders, according to the current situation, Dongguan’s GDP will stand at the trillion-dollar mark in 2021.
Jiangsu, the top ten cities, accounts for five.
Judging from the regional distribution of the top ten cities, all of them come from the eastern coastal areas, including three in the northern region, namely Yantai, Xuzhou and Tangshan; There are seven in the southern region.
In terms of provinces, Jiangsu, the second largest economic province, has the largest number, and there are five in the top ten, namely Suzhou, Wuxi, Nantong, Changzhou and Xuzhou. These five cities have become attached to the subway at present.
Besides Jiangsu, the other five cities are from Guangdong, Fujian, Shandong and Hebei. Among them, two cities in Guangdong are Foshan and Dongguan, ranking third and fourth in Guangdong. Quanzhou ranks first in Fujian for a long time, Yantai ranks third in Shandong, and Tangshan has been pushing Shijiazhuang, the provincial capital, to rank first in Hebei.
Judging from the development paths of these 10 cities in recent years, there are great differences. Among them, several prefecture-level cities located in the Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta have gained more spillover from first-tier cities and second-tier leading cities, and in recent years, the transformation and upgrading have shown positive results, such as Suzhou, Dongguan, Wuxi, Nantong, Foshan, Changzhou and other cities.
For example, Shenzhen, with a local area of less than 2,000 square kilometers, has become increasingly saturated with land development space, so many industries in Shenzhen have spilled over to the surrounding areas, and Dongguan has benefited the most from its proximity to the moon. At present, an industrial complementary cooperation system of "you have me and I have you" has been formed between Dongguan and Shenzhen.
Nantong, from the central Jiangsu area and the north bank of the Yangtze River estuary, adheres to the general idea of "all-round integration into southern Jiangsu, all-round docking with Shanghai, and all-round promotion of high-quality development" to build a strong fulcrum city in the core triangle of the Yangtze River Delta integration. According to local media reports, Ji Jianlin, a professor at the Party School of Nantong Municipal Committee, said that the deep docking with Shanghai is an important driving force and source for Nantong’s GDP to exceed one trillion yuan.
Niu Fengrui, a researcher at the Center for Urban Development and Environment Research of China Academy of Social Sciences, analyzed the First Financial Report that the spillovers of energy and radiation from first-tier cities and top-tier cities are closely related, and the closer they are to high-energy cities, the stronger they will receive radiation, so that the high-tech spillovers of core cities will first choose neighboring cities.
The elements of modern service industry in first-tier cities and second-tier leading cities have accelerated the transformation and upgrading of surrounding manufacturing cities. However, for some ordinary prefecture-level cities such as Quanzhou and Yantai, which are far away from the three economic circles and the first-tier cities, there are still more ways to go for their transformation and upgrading and structural adjustment.
Take Quanzhou, the first economic city in Fujian, as an example. At present, the leading industries in Quanzhou are still light industries such as clothing, shoes and hats. Compared with similar cities, there are fewer high-tech enterprises in Quanzhou, the modern service industry is weak, and there is a bottleneck of insufficient talents in transformation and upgrading. For example, the data shows that in 2020, the number of high-tech enterprises in Quanzhou reached 1037, a net increase of 352 over 2019. However, compared with Dongguan, Suzhou, Wuxi, Foshan and other ordinary prefecture-level cities with large economic aggregates, there is a huge gap.
The situation in Yantai is similar. Last year, the total number of high-tech enterprises in Yantai reached 1,120, an increase of 36% over the previous year, ranking third in the province in terms of new number and total number respectively. However, compared with similar cities in the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta, the gap is far away.
For such cities, it may be necessary to strengthen their internal strength, improve the business environment, accelerate the construction of central cities, accelerate the development of modern service industries, and accelerate the upgrading and development of industries on the basis of existing manufacturing industries.
Niu Fengrui said that these cities need to have their own special orientation in the industrial structure and direction. They don’t have to follow the fashion and trends, but they should choose industrial sectors with comparative advantages according to their own resource endowments, regional characteristics and original industrial base, and focus on development. "In the geographical division of labor, we must have our own positioning, depending on whether there is a comparative advantage and whether there is a relatively lower production cost, which is the key to future development."
