A bird's-eye view of Pingyang county in Wenzhou, East China's Zhejiang province. [Photo provided by Pingyang county publicity department]
Over the past decade, Pingyang county has experienced the greatest development, the biggest changes in urban and rural landscapes, and the fastest growth in people's well-being, according to Zhang Shouyu, Party secretary of Pingyang, at a recent news briefing.
A decade ago, people saw Pingyang as a mountainous region rather than an industrial powerhouse. But 10 years later, the humble county's GDP has increased from 25.98 billion yuan ($3.61 billion) to 60.05 billion yuan, the total value of industrial enterprises above a designated size rose from 22.99 billion yuan to 52.69 billion yuan, total retail sales of consumer goods grew from 10.78 billion yuan to 26.61 billion yuan, foreign trade climbed from 3.88 billion yuan to 11.29 billion yuan, and the per capita disposable income of urban and rural residents rose from 28,761 yuan and 11,827 yuan to 58,224 yuan and 29,703 yuan, respectively.
Though endowed with limited resources, Pingyang has steadily followed the path of innovation, registered over-20-percent growth in R&D spending for six years in a row, and established industrial clusters for intelligent equipment, new materials, and fashion, each valued at over 50 billion yuan.
Numerous sci-tech enterprises have also gathered in the county, with the number of those honored as high-tech enterprises, provincial sci-tech SMEs, and provincial and national enterprise institutes multiplying by seven times, 23 times, and 16 times, respectively.
A bird's-eye view of the Binhai New Area in Pingyang. [Photo provided by Pingyang county publicity department]
