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Jiaxing, East China's Zhejiang province, received around 74,000 new permanent residents in 2019, the highest number in the past nine years, local media reported on Feb 20.

The figure places Jiaxing in third place provincewide after Hangzhou and Ningbo in terms of population growth. The city was home to 4.8 million permanent residents last year.

Haining, a county-level city in Jiaxing, ranked first among all areas in the city in terms of total population and population growth in 2019, with the respective figures standing at 878,300 and 19,800. It was followed by Tongxiang with a total population of 863,300 and a population increase of 15,200.

According to the Jiaxing municipal bureau of statistics, from 2013 to 2015, the city received an average of 10,000 new permanent residents per year. However, population growth accelerated to 29,000 new residents in 2016, 42,000 in 2017, and 50,000 in 2018.

This can be attributed to an increase in job opportunities in the city, a healthier natural environment, and more favorable public services.

In 2019, Jiaxing introduced 55 new projects worth more than $100 million and 13 worth more than 10 billion yuan ($1.42 billion), 10 of which were foreign-invested projects from Global 500 companies. The city ranked first in Zhejiang in all the three respects.

The Jiaxing municipal government allocated 1.01 billion yuan to the treatment of environmental pollution in 2019, which improved water quality and decreased the average concentration of PM 2.5 to 35.3 μg/m³.

The local government also balanced educational resources for compulsory education around the city, promoted high quality development of basic education, and increased the sharing of medical resources with other cities in the Yangtze River Delta region last year.