Xinhua Silk Road: Four decades on, E China's Lianyungang sees giant leaps forward amid high-level opening-up

BEIJING, April 30, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- An interview event was held in Lianyungang City of east China's Jiangsu Province from April 26 to 30 to learn about the city's huge development over the past 40 years benefiting from China's reform and opening up.

Since becoming one of the first coastal cities that advances opening up in 1984, Lianyungang has made giant leaps forward from a traditional agricultural city to a coastal industrial city, a national comprehensive transportation hub, and a beautiful and civilized city.

Over the last 40 years, Lianyungang's regional GDP has grown from 2.36 billion yuan in 1984 to 436.36 billion yuan at present, an increase of 185 times.

During the same period, the income of urban and rural residents in the city has risen from 604 yuan and 462 yuan to 43,769 yuan and 24,411 yuan respectively. In 2023, the per capita disposable income of all residents in Lianyungang reached 35,983 yuan.

The city has improved and upgraded the industrial structure, marking the transition from traditional agriculture to port industry and high-tech industries.

For the past four decades, cargo throughput at Lianyungang has increased from 9 million tonnes to 320 million tonnes. The China-Europe and China-Central Asia freight trains departed from the city have made 16,000 trips, ranking the first in the province.

The free trade zones and comprehensive bonded zones in the city have developed rapidly, with the average annual growth rate of import and export of comprehensive bonded zones exceeding 40 percent. The city has become one of the most convenient portals for the Central Asian countries and the central and western parts of China, handling more than 80 percent of Kazakhstan's transit cargo to China.

Original link: https://en.imsilkroad.com/p/339992.html