Provincial Party Committee Secretary from a major economic province chooses the first stop in the new year in a major economic city: major provinces and cities should take the lead.
On the afternoon of January 2, Huang Kunming, secretary of Guangdong Provincial Party Committee, conducted a research tour in Foshan City. He emphasized the need to further enhance confidence and resilience, firmly grasp development opportunities, fully stimulate reform momentum, plan ahead, seize the day, and work with determination in the new year to achieve a new trend of positive aggression and boldness. This effort is aimed at achieving new and greater progress in high-quality development and better fulfilling the responsibility mission of serving as a backbone for the large economy city.
Public information shows that in 2023, Foshan’s GDP reached 1327.6 billion yuan, an increase of 5%. This not only marked the first time that its aggregate has exceeded 1.3 trillion yuan, solidifying its position as the third largest economy in Guangdong, but also outperformed the provincial average growth rate by 0.2 percentage points. Its GDP accounted for about 1/10 of the province.
According to the latest report from “Nanfang Daily”, during his research in Foshan, Huang Kunming fully recognized the solid results achieved by Foshan in economic and social development since last year. He pointed out that this year is the last year of the “14th Five-Year Plan”, and accomplishing the annual targets and tasks is crucial for Guangdong to take the lead in promoting modernization construction with Chinese characteristics. As a major economic and population city, Foshan occupies an important position in the overall development of the province. It is necessary to enhance the overall and responsibility awareness, carefully study and implement General Secretary Xi Jinping’s series of speeches and important instructions on Guangdong, follow the deployment arrangement of the 13th plenary session of the Provincial Party Committee and the economic work conference, efficiently promote the work in the new year, persist in taking responsibility and playing a leading role, use reform and innovation methods to solve development problems and open up development opportunities, further strengthen the function of a key city in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, better play a leading role, and make more contributions to the province with practical achievements.
“The choice of Foshan as the first stop of the research is profound and specific.” The “Southern Magazine” WeChat public account wrote an article saying that starting work on New Year’s Day means getting down to business. Foshan, a city with a rich historical heritage and modern manufacturing glory, is standing at a new historical starting point. Provincial Secretary Huang Kunming’s choice of Foshan as the first stop of his research in 2025 is not only a recognition of Foshan’s past achievements, but also an expectation for its future development. The more we understand Foshan, the more confident and stronger we will be. It is expected that Foshan will continue to take the spirit of daring to be the first and bear responsibilities bravely to contribute more to Guangdong and even China’s high-quality development as a “Foshan force”.
On January 2, the first working day of the year, a provincial major project construction thematic meeting was held in Wuxi, Jiangsu. Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee Xin Changxing attended and spoke at this meeting. Premier Xu Kunlin presided over it. The “Jiangsu News” WeChat public account analyzed that in the new year, facing a more severe and complex situation, Jiangsu must continue to play a leading role as a backbone city by focusing on project construction; to implement this well-targeted countercyclical fiscal policy landing by implementing specific projects. The choice to hold this meeting after an opening ceremony for project construction in Wuxi clearly sends a strong signal to cities across Jiangsu Province about “attaching greater importance to major project construction.”
Earlier, Wuxi Daily published an article titled “A Review of Wuxi’s Economic and Social Development in 2024,” emphasizing that “being a major economic city with responsibility for making contributions” is not only Wuxi’s role but also an important dimension for reviewing Wuxi’s past year and a key perspective for looking forward to its future development. Under this responsibility mission of carrying “the most effort to make good results,” Wuxi bears this responsibility confidently and bravely faces difficulties.
Wu Xi City Party Secretary Du Xiaogangang recently stated that Wu Xi bears the responsibility mission of being a major economic city that can develop rapidly while carrying the expectations of the provincial party committee that it has great potential for growth. It has confidence in taking risks boldly, making innovative attempts, and promoting exploratory development with greater efforts in order to make more contributions to Jiangsu Province continuing to lead in deepening reforms further in all aspects comprehensively at its own paces’. There are multiple ‘major economic cities’ announcing their intentions one after another lately to fulfill their duties as economic backbones on top priority bases regarding contribution targets during special times in political elections where certain deadlines are fast approaching among regional cities who must prepare themselves with fresh slogans along with reform plans from scratch
