Yichang, a small town along the Yangtze River in the past, has now earned global fame with its GDP ranking 54thamong the top 100 cities in China and “Made in Yichang” exporting to over 150 countries and regions... On Sept. 10, the Publicity Department of Provincial Party Committee held “Magnificent 70 years· Struggling For a New Era” — the 9thpress conference for the celebration of the 70thanniversary of the founding of New China — focusing on “Yichang - from a small town along the Yangtze River to the ‘two in the forefront’ ”.
Being the home of the Three Gorges Project, Yichang is known as a pleasant and prosperous city and has been listed as a key national tourist city. In 1949, the GDP of the small town was only 151 million yuan. Over the past 70 years, by taking great opportunities of the "The Third-Front Movement" and the constructions of the Gezhouba Dam as well as the Three Gorges Project, and riding on the mighty driving force of the reform and opening-up, Yichang has realized the historic leap from the small town to the famous hydropower city in the world.
It is learned from the press conference that by 2018, Yichang’s GDP had made a breakthrough and reached 406.4 billion yuan, ranking 54thin the national top 100 cities; the per capita GDP had increased to 98,269 yuan, ranking 2ndin the province. The income of urban and rural residents had amounted to 35,000 yuan and 16,000 yuan respectively, a respective increase of 70 times and 124 times from 472 yuan and 225 yuan in 1981. The residents' bank savings deposit had increased from 90 million yuan to 191.4 billion yuan, a rise of 2,126 times. The urban population had grown to 1.75 million, the urban area had expanded to nearly 200 square kilometers, the urbanization rate had reached 60.86% and the poverty rate had dropped to 1.53%. In 2018, Yichang ranked the first in the goal appraisal grading of political performance and the first in commercial environment assessment among the prefecture-level cities.
As a regional central city in the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River and the world's hydropower capital, Yichang gives full play to its regional advantages and uses the open platform of Yichang Free Trade Zone to build a new pattern of opening-up. “Made-in-Yichang” products have been exported to over 150 countries and regions, 48 Yichang enterprises have “gone out” to invest abroad, and Yichang has established friendships with 24 cities in 19 countries. In 2018, Yichang's foreign trade import and export volume exceeded 20 billion yuan, of which the trade volume of the top 7 trading partners of “One Belt, One Road” reached 3.6 billion yuan. The annual passenger throughput of the Three Gorges Airport reached nearly 3 million, including 55,000 international passengers. The cumulative regulated value of the Three Gorges Bonded Logistics Center exceeded 3 billion yuan, showing a blowout growth. Yichang cross-border e-commerce industrial park has opened; Yichang Comprehensive Bonded Zone will reach the closure operation within the year.
Nowadays, one out of every seven pianos in the world is made in Yichang and the GAC Yichang passenger vehicle project makes a new car off the production line for every 52 seconds. Entering the new era, Yichang, taking the protection of the Yangtze River as the main battlefield, comprehensively connects the strategic layout of "one core, two belts and three zones", fully carries out the strategy of "double-core drive, multi-point support, coordinated development", and firmly implements ecological restoration, environmental protection and green development for high quality development. Up to now, 178 kilometers of greeneries of the main streams and tributaries of the Yangtze River have been regained, and 81.5 kilometers of greeneries have been repaired. 216 illegal docks have been banned, 51 port terminals have completed shore power transformation, 187 kilometers of black and stinky water bodies in the urban area have been treated, 16 industrial gathering areas have been equipped with sewage treatment facilities. Painful self-adjustments have been made to chemical enterprises along the Yangtze River, with 31 enterprises closed, 43 enterprises upgraded, 2 relocated, 20 start-up relocated and 7 transformed for production. The proportion of fine chemical industry has increased from 18% two years ago to 33%.
Meanwhile, based firmly on the entity economy of manufacturing industry, Yichang launches a three-year plan to invest 240 billion yuan in industrial technological reform, continues to carry out "lump start-ups and lump contract-signing" for major projects, and accelerates the optimization and upgrading of manufacturing structure. The production value of emerging industries such as biomedicine, electronic information, new materials, advanced equipment manufacturing has accounted for 38.5%. The city has 4 national "champion" manufacturing enterprises, 9 intelligent manufacturing demonstration enterprises above the provincial level, 133 pilot demonstration enterprises of " integration of informatization and industrialization " above the provincial level, 64 "invisible champion" enterprises in the field of provincial pillar industry segmentation, and the construction of generic drug demonstration has been accelerated. Yichang High-tech Zone has been listed as the "National Military-civilian Integration Industry Demonstration Base." (Reporter He Guanying)