Heze makes great progress in past decade

Heze city in East China’s Shandong province has seen significant transformation over the past 10 years, according to senior officials.

"Over the past 10 years, we adhered to the new development concepts and laid a solid foundation for high-quality development," said Zhang Xinwen, Party secretary of Heze, at a news conference on Sept 1.

The city’s gross domestic product surged from 178.3 billion yuan ($25.69 billion) in 2012 to 397.7 billion yuan in 2021, with its ranking increasing from 13th place in the province to 8th place during the period.

Key industries have gained momentous development. Over the past 10 years, Heze has been actively exploring ways to develop a characteristic industrial system to strengthen its industrial economy.

The promotion of two key industries, high-end chemicals and biomedicine, has received more attention. According to Zhang, the average annual growth rate of the output value of businesses over the designated scale in the biomedicine industry has surpassed 30 percent over the past three years.

Numerous emerging industrial clusters in the fields of new energy and materials, next-generation information technology, and modern services have experienced thriving development.

Moreover, Heze has taken a new leap forward in the fight against poverty after concrete and effective targeted poverty alleviation measures have been introduced over the previous decade, according to Zhang Lun, mayor of Heze.

By the end of 2020, 1.7 million poverty-stricken people in the city had been lifted out of poverty, and 855 poor villages in the city had been removed from the province's poverty-stricken list, Zhang Lun said. The annual per capita net income of poverty-stricken households increased from 2,747 yuan at the end of 2015 to 7,580 yuan at the end of 2020.

Over the past 10 years, the city’s modern agriculture industry has also shown positive development. The city has formed an agricultural industry cluster that’s based on peonies. Dubbed the “Peony Capital of China”, Heze has a long history of peony flower cultivation. Currently, the city’s planting area of peonies ranks first in China.

The booming development of e-commerce also plays a big role in boosting the promotion and development of rural industries, said Zhang Lun. The per capita disposable income in rural areas of Heze has doubled in the past 10 years.