An Overview About Haiyan County

Haiyan County is located on the Hangjiahu Plain and is known as the "Land of Fish and Rice" and "Home of Silk". The county has a total area of 1,072.6 square kilometers, with 595.6 square kilometers of land. It administers five towns and four subdistricts, and has a resident population of 477,000. In 2024, Haiyan County achieved a regional GDP of RMB 72.54 billion, an increase of 5.2%, or 6.0% if the nuclear power plant within the county is excluded. Total fiscal revenue reached RMB 11.11 billion, of which general public budget revenue was RMB 6.37 billion. The ratio of fiscal revenue to GDP was 15.3%, the highest in the city. The average disposable income per capita for urban and rural residents was RMB 80,870 and RMB 53,025, representing year-on-year growth of 2.9% and 4.7%, respectively. The income disparity between urban and rural residents narrowed to 1.53.

Haiyan: A Millennium - Old County with Rich History.Haiyan, a county with a history spanning thousands of years, got its name from the phrase "vast coastal areas with salt fields in sight". It boasts over 6,000 years of civilization and 2,200 years of county - building history and has been recognized by the UN Expert Group on Geographical Names as a "Millennium - Old County". Haiyan's cultural heritage is profound and enduring. It is home to the Jinshu Temple, one of the three oldest temples in Jiangnan with a history of 1,700 years, the Qianfo Pavilion, known as "Zhejiang's No. 1 Pavilion" for over 600 years, and the Yu Lin Sea Dyke, a "Great Wall on the Sea" constructed during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. In addition, the county has a wealth of historical and cultural sites. Its cultural traditions include the Haiyan tune, one of the four major tunes of Southern Opera, and the Haiyan Rolling Lamp, listed in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage. Haiyan Qiyuan Garden ranks alongside Suzhou's Humble Administrator's Garden as one of the "Top Ten Gardens in China". Haiyan has produced many outstanding talents throughout history. Gan Bao, a literary and historical figure of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, wrote "A Collection of Supernatural Tales", which is considered the origin of Chinese genre of supernatural fiction. Gu Kuang, a great Tang Dynasty poet, inherited the realist tradition of the Poet Sage Du Fu and was a pioneer of the New Yuefu Poetry Movement. Zhang Yuanji, a publishing magnate, presided over The Commercial Press, which became the longest - lasting and most influential cultural institution in China's modern history. Cartoonist Zhang Leping created the iconic "Sanmao" character, which is widely recognized both domestically and internationally. Bu Xingsheng, a reform pioneer, kicked off the reform of urban and rural enterprises in China with a pair of scissors. Yu Hua, an avant - garde writer, has gained lasting fame for his literary works such as "To Live" and "Brothers".

Haiyan: An Ecologically Beautiful Coastal City.Haiyan boasts a 53.48 - km "golden coastline", the longest in Northern Zhejiang and the only coastal county - level city in this area.Strategically located in the geographic center of the Yangtze River Delta urban cluster, Haiyan enjoys great transportation convenience. It takes 15 minutes to access expressways throughout the county, and major cities like Shanghai, Hangzhou, Suzhou, and Ningbo are within a one - hour travel radius. With the full - scale construction of the Tongzhou - Suzhou - Jiaxing - Ningbo High - speed Railway, the Jiaxing - Haiyan Expressway, and the Haiyan Connection Line of the Hangzhou - Puji Expressway, Haiyan will be better integrated into the Yangtze River Delta's rail network and the Jiaxing "Half - hour Commute Circle".Haiyan's "front - sea, back - river" geographical feature offers unique advantages. The county's port area is a national first - class open port with six 10,000 - ton berths. A 1,000 - ton waterway connects it to major routes like the Beijing - Hangzhou Grand Canal. The northern Zhejiang high - grade waterway network container transportation channel in Haiyan has been completed and opened to navigation. Efforts are underway to build a modern logistics and transportation network linked to the Hongqiao International Open Hub.Haiyan has always prioritized ecology, fighting the "five major battles" focusing on water, air, soil, waste, and plastic pollution. It has won Zhejiang's top water - governance award, the "Dayu Ding", three times. Key ecological indicators remain leading, public satisfaction with the environment has ranked first in the city for two consecutive years, and it has excelled in Zhejiang's "Beautiful Zhejiang" evaluation. Haiyan is a provincial clean air demonstration area, one of the first four - star "waste - free cities" in the province, a national civilized city, and a national ecological civilization construction demonstration county.As a Zhejiang demonstration county for all - for - all tourism and a key tourism destination in the Yangtze River Delta, Haiyan is home to the nation's first national - level Yu Lin Sea Dyke water conservancy scenic area themed on "sea dykes". Its cultural and tourism brands, such as "Watch the Sunrise with You in Haiyan" and the Shendang Granary, are gaining increasing popularity. The Nanbei Lake Scenic Area, bordered by mountains on three sides and the sea on the other, is the country's only all - in - one panoramic resort combining mountains, sea, and lake. The Nanbei Lake Future City's 5,000 - mu ecological wetland is now taking shape.

Haiyan is an innovative city full of vitality and dynamism. The Hangzhou Bay Bridge and the Jiashao Bridge are respectively located on the east and west sides of the county area of Haiyan. When Comrade Xi Jinping served as Secretary of the Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee, he once put forward the earnest expectation of building a "Golden Coast Economic Belt between the Two Bridges" for Haiyan. Haiyan is the "Cradle of Nuclear Power". The Qinshan Nuclear Power Plant, the first nuclear power plant independently designed, constructed, commissioned and operated on the Chinese mainland, is located in Qinshan Sub-district within the territory of Haiyan. Haiyan has always adhered to the concept of "Relying on Nuclear Power to Develop Haiyan" and is committed to creating a model of a zero-carbon system covering comprehensive applications such as nuclear power generation, isotope production and application, and heating. The development plan of the first Zero-Carbon Future City in the country has been approved at the provincial level, and the first nuclear energy industrial heating project in the country has been completed and put into use. Haiyan has become the first city in southern China to achieve nuclear energy heating. In particular, relying on the advantages of Qinshan Nuclear Power, Haiyan started the construction of the largest domestic nuclear technology application (isotope) production base, and successfully introduced 23 radionuclide and nuclear medicine research and development and production projects such as Novartis of Switzerland and China Isotope & Radiation Corporation, with a total investment of over 8 billion yuan.Haiyan has always regarded scientific and technological innovation as the primary driving force. It has established the Haiyan (Shanghai) International Innovation Center in Hongqiao, Shanghai, and introduced a number of high-end scientific research institutions such as the Yangtze River Delta Research Institute of Tsinghua University, Zhejiang, and the Development Research Institute of Fudan Science Park, Shanghai. At present, a total of 24 national-level specialized, sophisticated, distinctive and innovative "Little Giant" enterprises, 13 provincial-level hidden champion enterprises, and 203 provincial-level specialized, sophisticated, distinctive and innovative small and medium-sized enterprises have been cultivated. The total number of various "specialized, sophisticated, distinctive and innovative" enterprises ranks among the top in the province. The momentum of enterprise listing is strong. From 2022 to 2023, 3 new listed enterprises were added every year, and in 2024, 1 enterprise passed the review meeting. The total number of listed enterprises has reached 11, among which 4 are listed on the Beijing Stock Exchange alone. Haiyan has become the county with the largest number of listed enterprises on the Beijing Stock Exchange in the country.In recent years, Haiyan has been building a "3+3" advanced manufacturing industry cluster at a high level, with the "Three Advantageous Industries" of high-end fasteners, high-end equipment manufacturing, and intelligent integrated home furnishings, as well as the "Three Emerging Industries" of nuclear power-related and nuclear technology applications, new display and electronic information, and new energy and new materials as the main body. It has deepened the construction of a large-scale "Ten-Thousand-Mu Trillion-Yuan" industrial platform with the county-level development zone as the leader and the Bubu Development Zone and the provincial-level high-tech industrial park related to nuclear power as the two wings, and actively strived to establish a national-level economic and technological development zone. In the past three years, the actual utilization of foreign capital has been 1.032 billion US dollars, and the cumulative fixed asset investment has reached 100.34 billion yuan, with an average annual growth rate of 5.3%. The total profit of industrial enterprises above designated size in the county has ranked first in the city for three consecutive years, and every effort is being made to build an important base for advanced manufacturing in the Hangzhou Bay area.Haiyan is the hometown of Bu Xinsheng, a "Pioneer of Reform". In recent years, it has undertaken a total of 20 national-level reform pilot tasks and 145 provincial-level important pilot projects, and has won 5 provincial-level reform breakthrough awards. The experience of using value-added services to empower the attraction of foreign investment in high-end manufacturing was presented as a typical speech at the deepening reform committee meeting of the provincial Party committee and was selected as one of the best practice cases of the provincial business environment. A number of "Haiyan Experiences", such as in-situ urbanization and the construction of the grassroots health system, have been promoted throughout the province and even the whole country.

Haiyan is a happy city with an elegant lifestyle. It enjoys balanced and prosperous development between urban and rural areas. It has been included in the national demonstration list for new urbanization construction, the provincial pilot project for urbanization construction with county towns as important carriers, and the county-level contact point for the reform of urban-rural integration and development in the province. It is also one of the top 100 counties and cities in China for urban-rural coordination.Public services in Haiyan are widely accessible and inclusive. It has successfully been approved as one of the first national pilot projects for the standardization of basic public services. It is the first county in the country to achieve high-quality and balanced development of compulsory education at the county level. It has been rated as grade A for four consecutive years in the provincial assessment of educational modernization. In the construction of "Healthy Zhejiang", it has been rated as excellent in the provincial assessment for six consecutive years. The construction of the National Comprehensive Pilot Zone for Primary Health and the Provincial Pilot Zone for the Comprehensive Reform of Traditional Chinese Medicine has been completed to high standards.Cultural construction in Haiyan is people-oriented and beneficial to the public. A three-level public cultural service system at the county, town and village levels has been formed. The brand of "Etiquette of Haiyan" has been selected as one of the first batch of "Etiquette of Zhejiang" golden name cards in the province. It was the first in the province to establish a provincial-level demonstration zone for the public cultural service system and has been named the "Hometown of Chinese Literature".The local customs in Haiyan are simple and honest, and the social environment is comfortable and reassuring. It has been rated as a county without accumulated petition cases in the province for six consecutive years. It has won the first batch of "Safe Development Tripods" in the province and is expected to achieve the "20 consecutive championships" in the construction of a safe county. It is one of the safest cities in the Yangtze River Delta region.

After years of accumulation and nurturing, Haiyan has been biding its time and has now amassed sufficient momentum. It is now unleashing a continuous stream of development vitality and demonstrating vigorous vitality for transformation and leapfrog development. Standing at a new historical starting point, we have ushered in multiple historical opportunities such as the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta region, the southward expansion belt of Hongqiao, the demonstration zone for common prosperity, and the construction of the Greater Hangzhou Bay Area. In particular, with the accelerated construction of projects like the Tongxiang-Suzhou-Jiaxing-Ningbo High-speed Railway, the Haiyan Connecting Line of Hangzhou-Pudong Expressway, and the Jiaxing-Haiyan Expressway, the future development pattern of the county will be reshaped.In the next step, Haiyan will always adhere to the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, thoroughly study and implement the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping's important speech during his inspection in Zhejiang. It will unswervingly practice the "Eight-Eight Strategy", consistently implement the entrustment of the "Three Demonstrations", focus on "one primary task, three main directions of attack, and two fundamentals", concentrate on the core, make innovative breakthroughs, work hard and strive for excellence. With the actual achievements and effectiveness of high-quality development, Haiyan will strive to write a new chapter of Chinese path to modernization in Haiyan!