Nantong was among the top 100 cities in the 2021 list of China's happiest cities published by Xinhua News Agency and the Liaowang Institute, a think tank.

The honor is attributable to the unremitting efforts of the Nantong people over the years to build a prosperous society and a well-developed cultural atmosphere, and the high satisfaction of both urban and rural residents with the city.

A prosperous city

The government work report of 2021 shows that the GDP of Nantong exceeded 1 trillion yuan ($145.58 billion) in 2020, making Nantong the fourth city in Jiangsu province with a GDP exceeding 1 trillion yuan after Suzhou, Nanjing, and Wuxi.

Since China's reform and opening-up policy was launched in the late 1970s, Nantong's economy has been growing rapidly, with its GDP exceeding 2.94 billion yuan in 1978, 10 billion yuan in 1988, 100 billion yuan in 2004, and 400 billion yuan in 2011.

Since 2012, Nantong's total economic output has skyrocketed, reaching more than 1 trillion yuan in 2020.

Its economic aggregate reached 1,102.69 billion yuan and 1,137.96 billion yuan in 2021 and 2022 respectively, accounting each time for a higher proportion of the province's economic output.

Particularly, Nantong was home to over 1.1 million market entities by 2022, when all counties, including county-level cities and districts, in the city generated an average of over 100 billion yuan in total economic output.

Agricultural transformation

Nantong is a large agricultural city in Jiangsu. Known for its high-yielding grain and cotton production as early as the 1960s, Nantong has undergone historic changes since the late 1970s.

One significant change is that the agricultural operations have transitioned to being market-oriented.

The agricultural (agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, and fishery) industry in the city generated 95.06 billion yuan in 2022, 18.23 times higher than that in 1978.

The yields of grain and oil per mu were 1.63 times and 1.14 times as much as those in 1978.

Another change is that the contribution of technology to agricultural development in Nantong has been increased from 25 percent to 70 percent and the city has also seen an improved level of mechanization in agriculture.

Industrial upgrading

Since the late 1970s, Nantong has seized the opportunities brought by its river-sea combined development, international industrial transfer and integration of the Yangtze River Delta to optimize its industrial structure through sci-tech innovation, projects and enterprise cultivation.

The industries in the city have been transformed and upgraded and become a significant support for the city's high-quality development.

In 1978, the ratio of light industry to heavy industry in Nantong was about 2:1, and traditional textile, garment, and food processing industries accounted for half of the economic output. After 2000, the city's dominant industries had transitioned to shipbuilding, mechanics, and electronics.

In 2016, local authorities proposed to focus on high-end textiles, shipbuilding and marine engineering, and electronic information and nurture them as economic pillars, while also developing intelligent equipment, new materials, new energy and new energy vehicles, in order to accelerate the building of an advanced manufacturing system.

In 2021, the ratio of heavy industry in Nantong's total added value of industrial enterprises above designated size registered a record high of 51.7 percent.

Editor-in-chief: Yu Lei

Editor: Wang Yun

Photo by Gu Yao

Translated by Wang Haifei from the Shanghai Waiyuan Translation Agency