Sichuan provincial economic sub-center is gaining momentum. How can Chongqing see the opportunity？
New Chongqing-Chongqing Daily reporter Qin Tang
"Such a small battery is likely to subvert the industrial structure." On February 19th, in Sichuan Chengke Guore Energy Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Chengke Guozhong") located in Mianyang Science and Technology City New District, the general manager Lei Tianyu made a surprising speech.
This lithium-sulfur battery, which is called "super battery" in the industry, has a storage capacity 30% higher than that of lithium iron phosphate battery with the same volume, but its weight is only 40% of the latter, and it can operate normally at MINUS 60℃-100℃.
Since the trial production in September last year, Chengke Guozhong has received tens of millions of orders from drone companies, and products in the field of consumer electronics have also entered the experimental stage. It is not a dream that the annual output value will exceed 100 million in the future.
In recent years, Mianyang, which leads the three provincial economic sub-centers in Sichuan, has attracted much attention. In 2023, Mianyang’s GDP stood at a level of 400 billion, and its economic growth ran at a rate of 8%. Hundreds of "national achievements" were its greatest strength.
The rise of Mianyang is not a case, and the urban agglomeration of Sichuan provincial economic sub-center is taking shape.
From December last year to February 2024, Sichuan successively issued opinions on supporting Mianyang to speed up the construction of the provincial economic sub-center in northern Sichuan, Yibin Luzhou to organize the construction of the provincial economic sub-center in southern Sichuan, and Nanchong Dazhou to organize the cultivation of the provincial economic sub-center in northeastern Sichuan. The construction of the provincial economic sub-center officially entered the construction stage from the planning level.
Spread out the map of Sichuan and Chongqing, and you will find that two of the three provincial economic sub-centers in Sichuan border Chongqing, even Mianyang, which is the farthest away, is only 200 kilometers away from Chongqing. The vigorous implementation of national strategy and the proximity of superimposed spatial geography are destined to make "Chongqing" a "high-frequency word" for the construction of Sichuan provincial economic sub-center.
Then, what changes will the three provincial economic sub-centers planned by Sichuan in the west of Chongqing bring to the regional economic structure? For Chongqing, is this an "emergency" or an "opportunity"? In the big chessboard of regional development in Sichuan, what is worth learning from Chongqing?
The layout of Sichuan provincial economic sub-center is intended to "kill two birds with one stone"
Major prefecture-level cities start "racing mode"
It is a long-term realistic problem for Sichuan that Chengdu "dominates one city" and the economic gap with other prefecture-level cities "widens".
The data shows that in 2023, the regional GDP of Sichuan Province was 6013.2 billion yuan, and that of Chengdu was 2207.4 billion yuan, accounting for 36.71% of the province’s total economic output.
On the other hand, Sichuan’s "waist cities" are weak, and the economic volume of most prefecture-level cities is only 1/10-1/5 of that of Chengdu, so the imbalance of regional economic development is prominent.
Sichuan, on the other hand, has long seen the problem, and building a sub-center of provincial economy is a prescription for it. What is generally curious is, what are the standards of provincial economic sub-centers, and who can obtain this qualification?
In 2018, the relevant leaders of Sichuan Province said in public: I believe that after several years of hard work, several cities with an economic aggregate of about 300 billion yuan to 500 billion yuan will be formed. At that time, I will beat drums and drums to put the crown of "sub-center" on you.
The starting gun started, and the major prefecture-level cities in Sichuan started the "racing mode", and the "seed players" soon appeared.
In 2020, Mianyang’s economic aggregate will take the lead in breaking through 300 billion yuan among prefecture-level cities in the province; In 2023, Mianyang’s GDP stood on the step of 400 billion yuan, firmly seated in the "third city" of Chongqing, and became the leader of the racing competition;
Southern Sichuan Economic Zone, where Yibin and Luzhou are located, has an average annual growth rate of 7.5% from 2017 to 2021, ranking first among the five regions. In 2023, the total GDP of the two cities was 653.3 billion yuan, accounting for 11% of Sichuan Province, which was placed in the high hopes of "the third growth pole" of Sichuan and Chongqing.
In northeast Sichuan, in 2023, Dazhou and Nanchong achieved regional GDP of 265.67 billion yuan and 273.476 billion yuan respectively, with economic growth rates of 6.5% and 5.5%, which became an important support for high-quality economic growth in Sichuan.
"Large economic size is an important consideration for Sichuan to lay out provincial economic sub-centers, but it is not the only indicator." Cao Liang, director of the Research Center for Promoting the Construction of the Twin Cities Economic Circle in Chengdu-Chongqing Region, Chongqing Comprehensive Economic Research Institute, analyzed that it is a "kill two birds with one stone" choice for Sichuan to lay out three provincial economic sub-centers, among which the regional driving force and strong radiation are also one of the key elements, and it cannot be said that any city can do a good job of itself.
On the one hand, if the three provincial economic sub-centers want to solve the dilemma of "one city is the only one" in Chengdu, they must break away from the Chengdu economic circle and help prefecture-level cities to form a dense, intensive and efficient spatial development pattern.
On the other hand, the three provincial economic sub-centers have also released the signal of highlighting the leadership of the two cities and the coordination of the two wings, and made efforts to solve the problem of "two-core dominance, central collapse and unbalanced edges" in the economic circle of the two cities.
For example, Mianyang, as the sub-center of provincial economy in northern Sichuan, can better promote the development of industries with military advantages and high-level scientific and technological self-reliance, and accelerate the integration of northern Sichuan into the construction of the twin-city economic circle;
The sub-center of southern Sichuan provincial economy built by Yibin Luzhou Group can rely on the golden waterway of the Yangtze River to strengthen the function of opening the gateway to the south, enhance the ability to undertake industrial transfer, and promote the integrated development of southern Sichuan, Chongqing and western Sichuan;
The sub-center of provincial economy in northeast Sichuan cultivated by Nanchong Dazhou Group will promote the comprehensive integration of northeast Sichuan into the national "eight vertical and eight horizontal" high-speed railway network, and radiate the leap-forward development of the northern wing of the twin-city economic circle.
Building Sichuan into a sub-center of provincial economy will expand cooperation opportunities with Chongqing.
AITO Wen Jie series is both made in Chongqing and made in Sichuan.
At the beginning of March, the warm sunshine in early spring was sprinkled in the power battery town of Sanjiang New District, Yibin. It is here that the first battery product of Time Changan Power Battery Co., Ltd. officially rolled off the assembly line in 2023, marking the official production of the power battery production project jointly established by Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited, Changan Automobile and Deep Blue Automobile.
"Speaking of it, the AITO series jointly built by Sailis Automobile and Huawei is both made in Chongqing and made in Sichuan." Zhang Xinghai, the chairman (founder) of Sailis Automobile, said that the new energy power batteries on this series of cars are mainly produced and supplied by Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited’s factory in Yibin, Sichuan, and many parts are also from Sichuan manufacturers.
"It is not easy for Sichuan to build three provincial economic sub-centers. Only by relying on the strong east wind of the’ Twin Cities Economic Circle’ and strengthening cooperation and coordination with Chongqing can we achieve twice the result with half the effort, which has created more cooperation opportunities for Chongqing." Yang Jirui, Vice Chairman of China Regional Economics Association and Dean of Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Zone Development Research Institute of Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, analyzed.
Yang Jirui believes that Yibin’s "Time Changan Project" is a good case. Chongqing gives full play to the advantages of vehicle development, while Sichuan highlights the advantages of power battery industry and software digitalization, and jointly attacks the trillion-level intelligent networked new energy automobile industry cluster to enhance the competitiveness of regional industries.
Behind the strong rise of the trillion-level intelligent networked new energy automobile industry cluster is the ambition of Sichuan and Chongqing to jointly promote the construction of the national strategic hinterland.
Cao Liang pointed out that under the background of a large number of industries moving out, promoting the three provincial economic sub-centers in Sichuan and the neighboring areas in Chongqing to jointly build the core bearing place of the national strategic hinterland can attract the eastern coastal industries to accelerate the transfer to the central and western regions, promote the agglomeration of more high-energy industries, and activate the growth engine of the regional economy.
For example, in 2022, Chongqing Demonstration Zone along the Yangtze River undertook 333 industrial transfer projects in the eastern region, including nearly half of the projects in key areas such as advanced materials, intelligent networked new energy vehicles and equipment manufacturing, which provided key assistance for the industrial transformation and upgrading of Chongqing’s main metropolitan area and Sichuan Nanchuan’s medium "Chengdu-Chongqing main axis" area.
Taking advantage of the acceleration of the construction of three provincial economic sub-centers in Sichuan, the high-quality development of integration in western Chongqing has also pressed the "fast forward button".
Just in March this year, Luzhou Port, the largest port in Sichuan, signed the Cooperative Development and Cooperation Agreement with Yibin Port, which will give full play to the advantages of the golden waterway of the Yangtze River, cooperate to carry out the water-water transshipment of "Yibin-Luzhou" containers, and take the port as the logistics node to open a water-water transshipment liner route to jointly build the "Sichuan, Chongqing and Shanghai" and "Sichuan, Chongqing and Hubei" container boutique express line.
Cao Liang analyzed that Yibin and Luzhou both prospered because of the port. Thanks to the construction of the provincial economic sub-center in southern Sichuan, the pace of cooperation between the two places has been accelerated, which will help to jointly implement shoreline protection and development and waterway port construction with cities along the Yangtze River such as Yongchuan and Jiangjin in Chongqing, build a shipping hub in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, jointly develop the port economy and channel economy, and enhance the urban development level in western Chongqing.
At the same time, Nanchong and Dazhou Sub-centers for Cultivating Northeast Sichuan Provincial Economy will also pull 14 cities along the Yangtze River, such as Guangyuan, Guang ‘an and Hechuan District, to continue to deepen interaction and cooperation in port utilization, smooth navigation channels and shipping development, so as to accelerate the development of Jialing River’s water transport towards "integration".
Aiming at the goal of building a scientific and technological innovation center with national influence, the accelerated rise of Mianyang North Sichuan Provincial Economic Sub-center will further enhance the collaborative innovation capability of Sichuan and Chongqing regions.
"As a pole of Chengdu-Chongqing Mian’s innovative’ Golden Triangle’, at present, the synergy of scientific and technological innovation between Mianyang and Chongqing is showing a multi-point flowering trend." The relevant person in charge of Mianyang City introduced.
For example, Mianyang led the construction of "Yunshang University City" and "Yunshang Science and Technology City", which have settled in seven double-circle universities such as Sichuan University and Chongqing University, and the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China has established two multi-physics intelligent perception innovation teams, completed nine key technical breakthroughs and landed three scientific and technological achievements.
Mianyang also innovated and promoted the coordinated development of Sichuan and Chongqing in the Fujiang River Basin, and continued to build the brand activity of "Innovative Golden Triangle Zhihui Science and Technology City", and jointly held 15 events in Chengdu and Chongqing, such as Beibei District of Chongqing, releasing more than 600 latest scientific and technological achievements in Sichuan and Chongqing to the whole country and promoting more than 200 docking.
In addition, Mianbei’s regional innovation cooperation has also been deepened, and more than 20 series of scientific and technological innovation activities have been carried out in the two places. Chongqing Science City Beibei Company and Zitong County Honey Pomelo Base have become Mianbei’s scientific and technological collaborative innovation demonstration bases.
Enlightenment of Sichuan’s layout of provincial economic sub-centers to Chongqing
Regional economic development should have the courage to draw a blueprint to the end.
"Economic development is like sailing against the current. If you don’t advance, you will retreat. At present, Chongqing is striving to build an upgraded version of the’ No.1 Project’. The economy and society are going against the trend in multiple challenges and bearing pressure in great difficulties. " Peng Jinsong, director and researcher of the Institute of Urban and Regional Economics of Chongqing Academy of Social Sciences, said that the construction of three provincial economic sub-centers in Sichuan can bring many thoughts and inspirations to the development of Chongqing.
Regional economic development should have the courage to draw a blueprint to the end. Peng Jinsong said that the construction of Sichuan provincial economic sub-center is a well-thought-out "big chess".
In fact, in order to break the situation of "one city dominating the whole city" in Chengdu and build a more balanced and coordinated regional development pattern, Sichuan Province has spent nearly 10 years looking for a way to break the situation, and successively implemented the regional development strategy of "multi-point and multi-pole", "doing a lot of work" and "developing five regions together" (Chengdu Plain, South Sichuan, Northeast Sichuan, Panxi Economic Zone and Northwest Sichuan Ecological Demonstration Zone).
In 2018, at the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Provincial Party Committee, Sichuan identified seven regional central cities, including Mianyang, Deyang, Leshan, Yibin, Luzhou, Nanchong and Dazhou, and encouraged and supported qualified regional central cities to strive for the province’s economic sub-center.
In 2022, Sichuan clearly identified Mianyang, Yibin-Luzhou Group and Nanchong-Dazhou Group as three provincial economic sub-centers for the first time.
Since 2023, Sichuan has intensified its efforts to promote the construction of provincial economic sub-centers. In the government work report, it proposed "one center, one plan" to support the construction of three provincial economic sub-centers and regional central cities, and at the end of that year, it began to issue opinions to support the construction of provincial economic sub-centers.
"It can be said that the concept of Sichuan provincial economic sub-center has benefited from the consistent persistence of policies from planning to landing." Peng Jinsong said that Chongqing should also have such a systematic, forward-looking and collaborative regional high-quality coordinated development top-level design to boost economic leap-forward development.
It takes hard work to promote the accelerated growth of regional central cities. "At present, compared with the three sub-central cities in Sichuan, Chongqing’s regional central cities are underdeveloped, and the ability to gather industrial factors and resources needs to be improved, and the role of radiation driving needs to be strengthened." Peng Jinsong bluntly said.
In terms of economic volume, apart from the central city, Chongqing’s regional GDP in 2023 exceeded 100 billion yuan only in Fuling (162.6 billion yuan), Jiangjin (140.1 billion yuan), Yongchuan (128.1 billion yuan), Wanzhou (117.9 billion yuan) and Hechuan (102.3 billion yuan), and the economic scale was less than 200 billion yuan, which was the same as that of Sichuan.
Peng Jinsong suggested that Chongqing should learn from Sichuan’s experience in developing into a bigger and stronger regional central city. It should not only strengthen the resilience of tapping potential inward and cultivating excellence, but also enhance the stickiness of expanding radiation outward, and organize a group to cultivate a number of secondary economic growth poles to support the development of the metropolitan area.
For example, in western Chongqing, Yongchuan-Jiangjin linkage can be built into a new growth pole in the south wing, Bishan-Hechuan linkage can be built into a new growth pole in the north wing, and Yibin and others can be cooperated to build a "Chengdu-Chongqing intelligent networked new energy automobile parts supporting corridor" to build a national hub node of a national integrated computing network with Tianfu Data Center;
In the eastern part of the main metropolitan area, Fuling, Changshou, Nanchuan, Qijiang-Wansheng will be built into a new city in eastern Chongqing with complementary functions and interactive integration with the central city;
In the northeast of Chongqing, support Wanzhou-Kaizhou-Yunyang to accelerate the formation of a new pattern of industrial synergy, co-construction and sharing, and mutual development, strengthen the overall coordination of Wankaiyun and Wandakai in planning, policies, projects, platforms, etc., and accelerate the formation of integrated development synergy between Northeast Sichuan and Northeast Chongqing.
To activate the strong engine of regional economy, we must seek new kinetic energy and new track. As a "dark horse" in Sichuan and Chongqing in recent years, Yibin is a good case.
Yibin, as a typical resource-based city, once relied heavily on liquor and coal industries. However, in recent years, Yibin has introduced emerging industries such as lithium batteries, intelligent terminals, new energy vehicles and crystalline silicon photovoltaics out of nothing, changing the traditional industrial structure of "white+black".
In addition, Yibin has introduced the chain owner enterprises with Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited as the core, built an ecological circle of the whole industrial chain from raw materials and components to batteries, whole vehicles and waste batteries, and has become one of the regions with the most complete industrial chain of power batteries and the strongest supporting capacity in China. It has continued to exert its strength and layout on sub-tracks such as crystalline silicon photovoltaic to seize the development opportunities, and added the city label of "China Power Battery Capital" in addition to "China Wine Capital".
Peng Jinsong said that if Chongqing wants to solve the problems of small regional economy scale, insufficient kinetic energy and poor structure, it should look for opportunities in the cultivation of future industries, focus on opening up new tracks, expanding new kinetic energy and cultivating new advantages, so as to form amplification effect and build a solid foundation for the high-quality development of regional economy.
On Sichuan Provincial Economic Sub-center > > >
● Mianyang area
In 2023, Mianyang’s GDP stood on the step of 400 billion yuan, and it became the "third city" in Chongqing, becoming the leader of the race.
● South Sichuan Economic Zone
Yibin and Luzhou are located in the southern Sichuan Economic Zone. In 2023, the total GDP of the two cities was 653.3 billion yuan, accounting for 11% of Sichuan Province, and they were placed on the high hopes of "the third growth pole" of Sichuan and Chongqing.
● Northeast Sichuan
In 2023, Dazhou and Nanchong achieved a regional GDP of 265.67 billion yuan and 273.476 billion yuan respectively, with an economic growth rate of 6.5% and 5.5%, which became an important support for high-quality economic growth in Sichuan.
Source: New Chongqing-Chongqing Daily reporter Qin Tang finishing.