“Mountains emerge in groups behind Mount Tianmu; Waters flow on separate ways out of Taihu Lake”. Named after Taihu Lake, Huzhou is located in the northern part of Zhejiang Province, on the southern shore of Taihu Lake. It covers an area of 5,820 square kilometers and has a permanent population of 3.42 million, with jurisdiction over 2 districts, Wuxing and Nanxun, 3 counties, Deqing, Changxing, and Anji, as well as two high-level development platforms - South Taihu Lake New District and Yangtze River Delta (Huzhou) Industrial Cooperation Zone.

Since the 18th CPC National Congress, General Secretary Xi Jinping has given important instructions and guidance on the work of Huzhou on 12 occasions. In particular, on March 30, 2020, Xi visited Anji, Huzhou for inspection, and gave us new expectations and requirements of “keeping up the good work, taking advantage of the momentum and proceeding forward”.

In recent years, Huzhou has followed through the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important instructions on the work of Zhejiang and Huzhou, fully implemented the decisions and deployments of the Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee, kept in mind the entrusted tasks, and gratefully forged ahead, promoting high-quality development to enter the “express lane” of momentum and transformation. Huzhou has achieved full coverage of more than 30 provincial and above-level honors, such as National Civilized City, National Ecological County, and Provincial Leading Industrial County.

In 2022, Huzhou’s GDP totaled 385.0 billion yuan, up 3.3% YoY, which was 0.2 percentage higher than the provincial average and 0.3 percentage higher than the national average. The total fiscal revenue and general public budget revenue increased by 7.5% and 1.4% respectively. The per capita disposable income of urban residents and rural residents reached 71,044 yuan and 44,112 yuan, an increase of 4.5% and 6.8% respectively, and the income gap shrank to 1.61. In the 2022 China Top 100 Cities list, Huzhou ranks 46th, moving 6 places from the previous year.

Huzhou is a vibrant entrepreneurial and innovation park full of opportunities. The fame of Huzhou, which has long been a prosperous city in Jiangnan, can easily been seen from the famous saying that “bumper harvests in Suzhou and Huzhou alone are enough to feed the whole nation”. In modern times, Huzhou merchants accumulated enormous wealth, symbolized by a constellation of wealthy merchants nicknamed “4 elephants, 8 bulls, and 72 golden dogs”. After the reform and opening up, the massive economy in Huzhou boomed. The sales volume of children’s clothing in Wuxing, wooden flooring in Nanxun, boards in Deqing, batteries in Changxing, and chairs in Anji account for 65%, 66%, 70%, 80%, and 33% of the country’s total output respectively.

These years, Huzhou has fully, accurately, and comprehensively implemented the new development concept, and has built a “2+8” high-level platform system led by the South Taihu Lake New District and Yangtze River Delta (Huzhou) Industrial Cooperation Zone. The city have cultivated 3 industrial clusters worth at least 100 billion yuan each, including high-end equipment, modern textiles, and leisure tourism; besides, the city has 3 industrial clusters worth at least 50 billion yuan each, including core industries of digital economy, new metallic materials, and green furnishings. Huzhou has had 6 companies listed in the “Top 500 Private Enterprises in China”, added five new listed companies, and had 44 new national-level “little giant” firms, i.e. specialized and sophisticated enterprises that produce new and unique products. The number of market entities has surged to 500,000 against the trend and the industrial added value above a designated size has exceeded 100 billion yuan. Huzhou has been recognized twice by the State Council for its significant contributions to promoting industrial stability and growth and for the effectiveness in promoting transformation and upgrading.

Currently, Huzhou is accelerating the construction of 8 emerging industry chains led by green intelligent manufacturing and dominated by new energy vehicles, logistics equipment, alloy special materials, engineering machinery, photoelectric communication and semiconductors, numerical control machine tools, biomedicine, and geographic information. Huzhou is the only city in Zhejiang province that has achieved full coverage of provincial modern service industry innovative development zones. It has also been selected as the second batch of national cultural and tourism consumption pilot cities. For 6 consecutive years, its comprehensive evaluation of agricultural modernization has ranked first in Zhejiang province, making Huzhou the second city in the country to basically achieve agricultural modernization. Huzhou steadfastly implements the strategy for invigorating the city through talent and innovation, and continues to deepen digital reform. The 1st China Green Low-Carbon Innovation Conference was successfully held in Huzhou, and the Global Geospatial Knowledge and Innovation Center, which is the first specialized agency in China established by the United Nations Secretariat, was officially launched in Huzhou. Huzhou has been approved by the State Council as a national sustainable development agenda innovation demonstration zone. Xisai Science Valley has become one of the first innovation bases of “Innovation China” and has completed the construction of the first municipal-level “Talent Digital Brain”. Huzhou has been named a national pilot city for intellectual property (IP) protection. The number of high-value invention patents per ten thousand people is 17.9, and our science and technology innovation index ranks third in Zhejiang province.

Huzhou is a “livable and happy city” where people live and work in peace and contentment. Huzhou has a long-standing reputation of “In the turmoil of war, only in Huzhou can one preserve life and have peace”. It is also known as one of the regions in China with the most balanced urban and rural development and the safest social environment. Huzhou adheres to the principles of presuming action, presuming fault, and presuming solutions. Through the all-media supervision TV program “Kanjian”, Huzhou promotes the concept of “responding immediately when problems arise and no delaying until the next day”. Through the “Proactive Communication between Government and Enterprises” platform, Huzhou promotes the idea of “responding immediately when problems arise and working together between the government and enterprises”. Through the 12345 government hotline, Huzhou promotes the concept of “responding immediately when problems arise and resolving them promptly”.

Huzhou fully promote the concept “Tale of Two Cities”, which advocates low-cost entrepreneurship and high-quality living. Huzhou has taken the lead in achieving zero underdeveloped villages with collective economic annual operating income below 500,000 yuan in Zhejiang province, and the proportion of administrative villages with annual operating income above 800,000 yuan has reached 85%. Huzhou has become the first city in the province in establishing a long-term mechanism to prevent poverty-returning due to illness, ensuring that the personal medical expenses of the people in straitened circumstances do not exceed 10,000 yuan per year. The satisfaction rate of basic public services has ranked first in Zhejiang for 3 consecutive years, and Huzhou has been awarded the title of “The Happiest Cities in China of 2022”. By strengthening east-west poverty alleviation cooperation, the Huzhou Sheep Poverty Alleviation Project has been recognized as one of the “best global poverty reduction cases”. The practice of Anji Huangdu Village’s practice of donating white tea seedlings to help impoverished areas increase income and become more prosperous has been praised and approved by President Xi Jinping.

By balancing development and security, we have explored and developed the “Yucun Village experience” for rural governance and the “Zhili experience” for town-level governance. Huzhou has become the first in Zhejiang province to achieve full coverage of county-township-village conflict mediation centres, and has also achieved 15 consecutive championships and a “Golden Tripod with Stars” for its efforts in maintaining public safety. Huzhou has been awarded as a national model city for innovative social governance, one of the first demonstration cities in China for the construction of a law-based government, and one of the first demonstration cities in Zhejiang province for the construction of a law-based government. In 2019, the “China’s Governance and Its Global Significance” International Forum was held in Huzhou, bringing Huzhou to the spotlight as an important example to showcase the “governance of China”.

Currently, Huzhou is fully implementing the spirit of the 20th CPC National Congress, as well as the provincial and municipal Party Congresses. Huzhou is firmly carrying out the “Three Major Strategies”: building a city with ecological civilization, promoting innovation-driven development, and stimulating the city’s growth through reform and opening up. With “Beautiful China, Dynamic Huzhou” as the main theme, Huzhou is accelerating the construction of a “Six New Huzhou” with strength, vitality, quality, humanity, beauty, and happiness. Huzhou is striving to become a model city for high-level ecological civilization and a place that integrates the beauty, essence, and classic nature of China.