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Shaoxing in East China's Zhejiang province is accelerating the development of pilot common prosperity zones.

The city's urban–rural income ratio improved by 0.02 percentage points year-on-year, while rural residents' average disposable income in the first quarter of 2025 reached 17,054 yuan (about $2,375) — a 7.1 percent increase and the fastest growth rate in the province.

Sixty common prosperity zones are planned to cover 70 percent of the city's towns. Among these, 12 key zones have involved 74 projects with a total investment of 1.12 billion yuan. According to officials, each zone connects villages with shared geography, lineage, or culture to enhance resource integration and encourage deeper cooperation in rural vitalization.

Industrial development is central to the zones' mission. Shaoxing encourages collaborative development models within each zone, fostering spillover effects in industrial planning, specialty production, operations, infrastructure, and public services. The shift — from isolated breakthroughs to systemic coordination — is helping drive broader progress toward common prosperity.

Infrastructure remains the backbone of this strategy. Shaoxing is advancing integrated planning mechanisms and accelerating the rollout of shared public service systems across the zones. New facilities are being built while existing ones are increasingly shared to improve service efficiency.