Deep in canyon is the Zigui Plough Industrial Base rising like a phoenix.Racing fast is the Wufeng Ethnic Industrial Park like a ship sailing on the sea
Booming is the Zhijiang Yaojiagang Chemical Industrial Park running as an “intelligence industry”.
From January to July this year, the industrial enterprises above the designated size completed the total industrial output value of 267.095 billion yuan, getting a year-on-year growth of 12.8%. The economy in counties made great contributions. The output value of three county-level cities, namely, Yidu City, Zhijiang City and Dangyang City as well as Yiling District is 173.982 billion RMB yuan, making up for 65.1% of that of the whole Yichang City. “Project construction is the strong engine, emancipating the minds is the source of power, and developing with characteristics is the right path”, said Huang Chuping, the municipal party secretary, when he talked about the counties’ economic development in Yichang.
Focus on projects and construct the major ones
Walking into the project exhibition room of the Plough Industrial Base in Zigui County, we saw a number of navigation equipments such as plough avigraph, automobile data recorder and digital interphone. These products are the fruits of the cooperation between Plough Industrial Base and Kuangtong Electronic Company. It is estimated that the output value will reach 0.3 billion RMB yuan this year. Wan Changfan, the CEO of Plough Technology Company, said that when the first phase is completed, the sales revenue will reach 1 billion RMB yuan, and in five years, the output value will reach 2 billion RMB yuan, and the annual tax will be more than 0.15 billion RMB yuan.
Since the beginning of this year, Zigui County, in developing its economy, has always given priority to project construction. It has put preponderant strength and resources to promote project construction and newly opened 195 projects, among which 19 are invested with more than 100 million RMB yuan.
In the Zhijiang Yaojiagang Chemical Industrial Park where buildings are towering and pipe racks extending in all directions, the compounding fertilizer project which can yield 60 thousand tons of fertilizer conducted by Hubei Sanning Chemical Company is under construction, and the first set of the compound fertilizer with tower granulation is going to be put into operation very soon.
Taking transformation and development as the mainline and project construction as the focus, Zhijiang County has newly signed 32 projects, with the total sum of investment by agreement reaching 11.5 billion RMB yuan, and four projects to be invested with over 1 billion RMB yuan.
The booming of counties’ economy has driven the industrial investment in Yichang with a dramatic speed. So far, the full-caliber industrial investment is 60.2 billion RMB yuan, outnumbering the provincial average increase rate by 12.3%, and ranks the second in Hubei Province.
Balance urban and rural development
On August 26, in the production workshop of Hubei Yususi Foodstuffs Company of Daohuaxiang Group, the corn steep liquor was carried to logistics center after being automatically packed on the assembly line. According to the person responsible, if all of their production workshops are put into operation, 30 thousand tons of drinks will be produced per year, yielding an output value of 2 billion RMB yuan.
Under the drive of Daohuaxiang Group, a sweet corn demonstration base of 6 km2 has been built in Longquan Town. More than 6,200 nearby households plant sweet corns according to the standard. They can earn 997 yuan per mu (15 mu=1 hectare), which is the twice of that than the common corns.
In order to become a demonstration area of balancing urban and rural development, Yiling District follows the concept of the common development of the city and the industry as well as the urban and the country, giving full support to promote the agricultural industrialization projects. Since this year, Yiling District has invested 1 billion RMB yuan and constructed more than 2,000 agricultural projects.
As the hometown of the golden gardenia, Changyang Tujia Autonomous County is the largest producing area of gardenia fruits in Hubei Province. In 2013, Hubei Yujin Biological Technology Co., Ltd. invested 80 million yuan to build the integrated development project of golden gardenia in Changyang. After being put into production, 5000 tons of gardenia raw materials can be made into 500 tons of gardenia yellow pigment annually, which will bring an annual output value of 150 million yuan and 25 million yuan profits and taxes.
Currently, 121 projects with an investment of 5 million yuan and above for each are under construction in Changyang, and 36 of them own an investment of more than 100 million yuan. The social fixed assets investment, industrial added value and exports increased 28.2%, 11.8% and 63.9%, respectively.
In Yuan’an County, 40% of per capita annual net income of farmers come from the mushroom industry. At present, the county is focusing on making itself a “Chinese Mushroom City”, exploring the establishment of a complete industry chain including mushroom cultivation, processing, trade, leisure and tourism.
The coordinative urban-rural development of county-level economy helps Yichang to be in the leading position in Hubei province and even in China in terms of the characteristic agricultural development, leading enterprises cultivation, resources utilization and integration and top brand building, providing more platforms for farmers to increase income.
More Counties Develop Together
In the past, only one county was outstanding on development. But now more and more counties are striving for better development, showing a flourishing trend of county development of Yichang.
Changyang and Wufeng, two Tujia Autonomous Counties that are located in the mountainous area, have made great strides in their economic development.
This summer, the jewelry souvenirs designed and manufactured by the Three Gorges International Jewelry Boyi Industrial Park in Wufeng has become an important Chinese element in the Brazil World Cup. The Jewelry Boyi Industrial Park was invested by Hubei Nice Industrial Co., Ltd and completed in Wufeng National Industrial Park in 2012, achieving an output value of 270 million yuan the year it went into production.
Wufeng County is located in Wuling mountainous area, which is the ecological function zone of the Three Gorges reservoir area. For the purpose of soil and water conservation, the country has constrained its development so that it has long been left behind in terms of industrial and economic development. However, Wufeng always tries to explore its special way of development. In January 2011, the county adjusted its development ideas and looked for the opportunities out of the mountainous area, taking the initiative to negotiate with Zhijiang City to build the Wufeng National Industrial Park with Baiyang Town. Thus Wufeng Country has been able to develop industries out of its own region, achieving the goal of developing economy while protecting its own natural environment. Currently, Wufeng National Industrial Park has already signed 15 projects with an investment of 6.2 billion yuan by agreement, and has achieved an investment of 2.423 billion yuan, an industrial output value of nearly one billion yuan, 45 million yuan of tax and $ 6.3 million of foreign exchange earnings.
Zigui, Zhijiang and some other counties and county-level cities have taken advantages of their geographical locations to develop port economy, and Changyang and Yiling have made full use of their ecological and tourism resources to develop tertiary industry. A new distinctive and vigorous development pattern of county-level economy is taking shape in Yichang. (Reporters of Hubei Daily: Tang Yigui, Wang Chenglong; correspondents: He Fan, Cai Junting, Yi Shixuan)