Major agricultural province's pursuit of new quality productive forces

An over 5,000-year-old jade figure unearthed in Anhui, a major agricultural province in east China, was found to have a hole with a diameter of 0.15 mm, which could only fit a couple of hairs through. It is an outstanding representative of exquisite craftsmanship in the late Neolithic Age.

The pursuit of first-class manufacturing has been passed down to this day, as Anhui Province has emerged as one of the highlands of China's manufacturing and science and technology innovation, with 10 percent of the world's laptop computers, 20 percent of LCD monitors, and half of photovoltaic glass manufactured here.

As an area under China's national strategies including the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta, Anhui has leveraged its location advantages and natural endowments over the past years to cultivate new quality productive forces and promote high-quality development.

NEW ENERGY, NEW MOMENTUM

In less than a minute, a car rolls off the assembly line of the BYD Hefei base. Li Li, general manager of the base, said that about 500,000 new energy vehicles (NEVs) had been produced and sold from this base in 2023, a year-on-year increase of nearly 400 percent.

"With a global vision, we have achieved amazing speed, a result of the province's efforts for many years," Li said.

Anhui has set the automobile industry as the primary industry that it strives to promote. In 2023, Anhui's automobile output hit 2.49 million units, an increase of 48.1 percent, ranking second in the country.

Chen Jun, director of the Anhui Provincial Development and Reform Commission, said that Anhui launched a series of measures to promote the automobile industry, including introducing the country's first provincial-level special legislation for the NEV industry in 2023 and establishing the provincial automobile office.

Seven leading vehicle manufacturers, including Chery, BYD and Volkswagen, and more than 1,000 companies across the entire auto industry chain have based themselves in Anhui, with an output value reaching 1.15 trillion yuan (about 162 billion U.S. dollars).

More upstream and downstream companies in the automotive industry chain are gathering here. In March, JAC and Volkswagen China increased capital by 6.5 billion yuan to their joint venture, Volkswagen Anhui. In January, Fuyao Glass Industry Group Co., Ltd., a manufacturer of automotive and industrial glass, announced the establishment of three wholly-owned subsidiaries in Hefei, the provincial capital, and invested 5.75 billion yuan in constructing various accessory glass projects.

By 2023, the province's manufacturing investment had maintained a growth rate of over 18 percent for more than 20 consecutive months, and the number of manufacturing projects with a total investment of more than 5 billion yuan in 2023 had exceeded the sum of the previous seven years.

INTELLIGENT MANUFACTURING, UPGRADING QUALITY

At the packaging workshop of Anhui Liuguo Chemical Co., Ltd. located in Tongling, the robotic arms instead of workers stack the heavy bags of fertilizer neatly. Before the upgrade of an automated product packaging line with industrial internet, the packaging workshop required workers to work in shifts around the clock, which was highly labor-intensive.

The company's phosphoric acid extraction rate has increased by 0.79 percent on average after applying the industrial internet, saving more than 6,000 tonnes of phosphate rock resources and reducing solid waste by about 10,000 tonnes every year.

Aiming at cultivating new quality productive forces with intelligent manufacturing, Anhui vows to achieve full coverage of digital transformation for manufacturing enterprises above the designated size -- which refers to enterprises each with an annual main business turnover of at least 20 million yuan -- in key industries, and full coverage of digital applications for manufacturing enterprises below designated size by 2025.

In 2023, the output value of Anhui's strategic emerging industries accounted for 42.9 percent of the industrial output value above the designated size. Supported by strategic emerging industries, the province's major industrial enterprises achieved operating income of over 5 trillion yuan last year, a year-on-year increase of 8.9 percent.

EMERGING TECHNOLOGY, BRIGHT FUTURE

The Hefei new and high technology industrial development zone, home to dozens of quantum technology companies, used to be farmland decades ago. Now, it is the birthplace of the world's first quantum communication satellite Mozi and the country's first quantum chip production line.

Qian Wen, deputy director of the zone's management committee, said that nowadays, the economic growth brought about by a 1 percentage point increase in regional GDP here is equivalent to the growth brought by 3.9 percentage points 10 years ago.

Xu Guangjian, professor at Renmin University of China, said that China's cultivation and development of new quality productive forces and promotion of high-quality development will provide domestic and foreign investors with unlimited market opportunities and broad development prospects.

In January, Origin Wukong, China's independently developed third-generation superconducting quantum computer, was launched in Hefei, making it the most advanced programmable and deliverable superconducting quantum computer in China.

So far, more than 4.28 million remote visits from 115 countries and regions have accessed Origin Wukong, which has completed nearly 167,000 global quantum computing tasks.

The photovoltaic panels located in Pazardzhik, a city in southern Bulgaria, shine brightly under the spring sun, supplying the city with a steady stream of clean electricity. The solar modules used in this solar park are all produced by Anhui Huasun Energy Co., Ltd.

"I believe today's layout will promote tomorrow's supply and future development. We are committed to promoting more Chinese scientific and technological innovation achievements to benefit the world," said Xu Xiaohua, chairman of Anhui Huasun.