(CFP Photo)
The development index of the Yangtze River Delta region stood at 129.5 in 2022, up 1.6 than in 2021 and 4.2 on average annually compared with that in 2015, according to the data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on December 25.
Encompassing the provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui and Shanghai Municipality, the region has one of the most vibrant, open and innovative city clusters in China. The latest statistics data revealed significant strides in the integration of the region, which leads the nation in modernization and regional coordinated growths.
The region’s gross domestic product totaled 29.03 trillion yuan in 2022, 1.8 times the level of 2015, representing 24.1% of the country's total.
The region’s imports and exports of goods and services amounted to 15.07 trillion yuan in 2022, accounting for 35.8% of the national total and an increase of 72.2% since 2015.
The actual utilization of foreign investment was $75.9 billion, an increase of 3.5% from 2015, accounting for 40.1% of the country’s total.
Research and development (R&D) expenditure in the region reached 938.6 billion yuan in 2022, an increase of 11.4% from the previous year and an average annual growth of 12.2% since 2015.
The region added over 210,000 new invention patents in 2022, a 1.4-fold increase from 2015. The average ownership of invention patents per 10,000 people increased from 3.9 in 2015 to 9.0 in 2022.
Amid progress in infrastructure connectivity, by the end of 2022, the operation mileage of railway network in the delta region exceeded 13,700 km, and the railway network intensity hit 380 km per square kilometers, a 38.8% increase than in 2015.
Air quality in the region has also improved. The average density of PM2.5, a key indicator of air pollution, was 31 micrograms per cubic meter in 2022, a 41.5% reduction from 2015. For the region’s 41 cities, the share of days with good air quality stood at 83% last year, an increase of 8.9 percentage points compared with 2018. And the sulfur dioxide emissions in the region was 186,000 tonnes in 2022, a drop of about 90% from 2015.
