Xinghua city – administered by Taizhou in East China's Jiangsu province – came top in a comprehensive assessment of high-quality development in the municipal administrative region in 2023, according to a review meeting held on May 13.
Xinghua's regional GDP hit 115.49 billion yuan (15.97 billion) last year, an increase of 7.3 percent year-on-year. In addition, the growth rate was 0.5 and 1.5 percentage points higher than the average of Taizhou and the province, respectively.
The city's foreign investment in actual use reached $118 million in 2023, a new high in the past three years. This represented a whopping 92.8 percent increase year-on-year, taking Xinghua to number one in the growth rate.
What's more, Xinghua's per capita disposable income stood at 43,733 yuan last year, up 6.5 percent on the previous corresponding period.
In 2023, the city's technical contract transactions amount jumped to 4.41 billion yuan, up 55.97 percent year-on-year.
Some 162 Xinghua enterprises were approved as high-tech enterprises last year, showing a net increase of 75 enterprises and an application pass rate of 75 percent. Its approved quantity, net increase and pass rate all ranked the city first in Taizhou.
Xinghua was home to 152 manufacturers with invoicing exceeding 100 million yuan and 717 national technological small and medium-sized enterprises in 2023.
In addition, last year it was honored as one of the first leading county-level cities for agricultural technology modernization. It also became a national pilot county-level city in the "Four Good Rural Roads" program – a national rural road improvement strategy released in 2014.