漫话南通 第十六期作品幸福家园

幸福家园

A Happy Home

“Everyone feels happy to live in such a city, and happiness is earned through hard work by your own hands.” On November 12, 2020, General Secretary Xi Jinping praised the happy life created by the local people during his visit to Nantong.

Nantong was among the top 100 cities in the 2021 list of China’s Happiest Cities jointly published by the Xinhua News Agency and the think tank Liaowang Institute in December 2021.

Underneath such happiness are the unremitting efforts of the Nantong people over the years, increased development gains, well-developed systems of culture, and high satisfaction levels among both urban and rural residents in Nantong.

On January 19, 2021, the Fifth Session of the 15th Nantong Municipal People’s Congress was convened.

It was announced in the government work report that Nantong achieved over RMB 1 trillion of GDP in 2020, a sign that Nantong became the fourth city in Jiangsu Province with a GDP topping RMB 1 trillion, after Suzhou, Nanjing, and Wuxi.

Since China’s reform and opening-up policy was launched, Nantong’s economy has been growing rapidly, with its GDP exceeding RMB 2.94 billion in 1978, RMB 10 billion in 1988, RMB 100 billion in 2004, and RMB 400 billion in 2011.

Since the 18th Party Congress, Nantong’s total economic output skyrocketed to more than RMB 1 trillion in 2020.

Nantong’s economic aggregate reached RMB 1,102.69 billion and RMB 1,137.96 billion in 2021 and 2022 respectively, accounting for a higher proportion of the province’s economic output.

Particularly, all counties (cities and districts) of Nantong achieved an average of over RMB 100 billion of total economic output and over RMB 1 trillion of the balance of deposits and loans, attracting more than 1.1 million market entities.

Nantong is a large agricultural city in Jiangsu.

Known as a city with high-yielding grain and cotton production as early as in the 1960s, Nantong has undergone historic changes since the reform and opening-up policy was implemented.

Significant changes are as follows. The mechanism of agricultural operations has transitioned from being backward and traditional to being market-oriented and modern.

The structure of agricultural economy has transformed into a three-tier structure of “grain, economy, and feed” featuring multiple cropping system and various forms.

The agricultural productivity (agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, and fishery) achieved a dramatic output value of RMB 95.06 billion in 2022, 18.23 times higher than that in 1978.

The efficiency of land use has improved significantly, with the yields of grain and oil per mu respectively growing to 1.63 times and 1.14 times as much as those in 1978.

Furthermore, the agricultural modernization has been scaled up, evidenced by the formation of the Nantong model for high-standard farmland construction, 70% contribution of agricultural technologies (compared to just 25% at the beginning of the reform), the improved seed coverage of 98%, the enhanced guarantee capability of water conservancy projects, and the steadily improved level of mechanization.

Since the implementation of the reform and opening-up policy, Nantong has actively seized the opportunities brought by the river-and-sea coordinated development, international industrial transfer and integration of the Yangtze River Delta, adjusted and optimized the industrial structure through sci-tech innovation, project and enterprise development.

From pursuing quantitative increases to qualitative optimization, Nantong has transformed and upgraded the industry that has become the crucial support for the city’s high-quality development.

In 1978, the ratio of light industry to heavy industry in Nantong was about 2:1, and traditional textile, garment, and food processing industries accounted for half of the economic output. After 2000, the city’s dominant industries transitioned from traditional light and textile industrie to shipbuilding, mechanics, and electronics industries.

In 2016, the Nantong Municipal Party Committee and Government clearly proposed to focus on developing three pillar industries (high-end textiles, ship and marine engineering, and electronic information), nurture three emerging industries (intelligent equipment, new materials, and new energy and new energy vehicles), and accelerate the building of such a “3 + 3 + N” system of advanced manufacturing. In 2021, the share of heavy industry in Nantong’s total added value of industrial enterprises above the designated size registered a record high of 51.7%.