Hai'an in Nantong -- a county-level city in eastern China's Jiangsu province -- ranks 28th and 7th respectively in China's top 100 counties on comprehensive strength and investment potential, according to lists released by the People's Daily newspaper on Oct 8.

Moreover, the findings also showed that Hai'an ranks 22nd among the top 100 counties and cities in green development in China in 2019. That's up two places from last year and the city also came 32nd among the top 100 counties and cities in scientific and technological innovation in China in 2019 -- up one place from last year.

Local officials said that in recent years, Hai'an has made every effort to build itself as a comprehensive transportation hub in eastern Jiangsu.

They said it had also promoted itself as an industrial leading hub in the north region of the Yangtze River Delta, a provincial innovation-driven development demonstration area and a city of livability, industry development and happiness.

They added that it had ranked first in the comprehensive assessments of Nantong's economy for seven consecutive years.

In the first half of this year, Hai'an's GDP reached 52.42 billion yuan ($7.35 billion), an increase of 6.6 percent and its fixed assets investment reached 25.53 billion yuan, an increase of 69 percent.

During the same period its general public budget revenue reached 3.86 billion yuan, an increase of 42.6 billion yuan; its industrial taxable sales hit 96.64 billion yuan, an increase of 24.2 percent and revenue from services came in at 104.47 billion yuan, an increase of 49.9 percent.

Other statistics are also impressive. In the first half the value of construction output reached 42.16 billion yuan, an increase of 12.6 percent and total retail sales of social consumer goods totaled 17.1 billion yuan, an increase of 7.8 percent.

In the first half of the year, Hai'an ranked first in Nantong's evaluation of key economic indicators, officials said.