A bird's eye view of Rudong, a county level city in Nantong, a county-level city in East China's Jiangsu province. [Photo/ntfabu.com]

Rudong, a county-level city in East China's Jiangsu province, has made strides in high-quality development in the past decade.

In 2021, Rudong's GDP amounted to 12.22 billion yuan ($17.85 billion), with an average increase of 8 percent in the past 10 years. Rudong's ranking in the top 100 counties in China jumped from 56th in 2011 to the 33rd in 2021.

Zhongtian Technology Group, the largest advanced manufacturing enterprise in Nantong, won the "China Quality Award" and "China Industry Award", which are rated the highest levels in the areas of quality and industry.

In 2021, Zhongtian brought in a total revenue of more than 80 billion yuan, and Zhongtian Technology Industrial Park, located in the Rudong Economic Development Zone, is expected to achieve a taxable turnover exceeding 10 billion yuan this year.

To date, Rudong is home to six listed companies and 17 provincial "little giant" enterprises.

Yangkou town in the city has made the list of the top 100 towns in China, and the PetroChina Jiangsu LNG Terminal at Yangkou Port has to date delivered more than 63 billion cubic meters of natural gas since it opened in 2011.

Aiming to become the largest base for LNG loading and unloading, storage, supply and marketing in China, Yangkou Port is still expanding. By the end of 2025, the port is expected to handle more than 20 million tons of LNG per year and its annual taxable sales are expected to exceed 100 billion yuan.

In the past decade, Rudong has also witnessed the rapid development of its new energy industry. The industry’s taxable turnover exceeded 110 billion yuan last year, making it the largest and fastest growing industry in Rudong.

To date, Rudong has invested more than 1.2 billion yuan in ecological improvement, and Heming Park is the first wetland park in Rudong with a total investment of 400 million.

The urban areas of Rudong have been expanded to 70 square kilometers. With the establishment of 54 public green spaces, the green coverage rate in Rudong has reached 41.77 percent, with a per capita green area of 18.72 square meters.