The gross domestic product (GDP) of East China's Jiangsu Province reached 12.82 trillion yuan (about 1.788 trillion U.S. dollars), up 5.8% year-on-year, according to Jiangsu’s governor Xu Kunlin on January 23.
Xu delivered the government work report at the annual session of the Jiangsu Provincial People's Congress, noting the economic powerhouse now boasts five cities each with a GDP exceeding one trillion yuan.
The report showed that Jiangsu’s general public budget revenue increased by 7.3% to 993 billion yuan in 2023. The province achieved a historical high grain output of 37.975 billion kilograms, registered a foreign trade value of 5.25 trillion yuan, and topped China’s province-level regions in terms of actual use of foreign direct investment.
In 2023, the added value of the manufacturing industry reached 4.66 trillion yuan, accounting for 36.3% of the regional GDP. Jiangsu led the country with a high-quality development index of manufacturing industry at 91.9. Strategic emerging industries and high-tech industries accounted for 41.3% and 49.9% of the total added value of industrial enterprises above the designated size. All 13 cities with subordinate districts in Jiangsu were recognized among the top 100 advanced manufacturing cities in China.
Jiangsu’s research and development (R&D) spending intensity, or the expenditure on R&D as a percentage of its GDP, reached 3.2% in 2023. The average ownership of invention patents was 61.5 per 10,000 people, securing Jiangsu’s first place nationwide for eight consecutive years.
Jiangsu became home to 94,000 small and medium-sized tech enterprises and 795 “little giant” companies newly recognized at the national level, both leading the country. The "little giant" firms are competitive SMEs that specialize in niche markets. The coastal province boasted more than 51,000 high-tech enterprises and over 15.6 million talents.
Furthermore, the annual concentration of PM2.5 dropped by 33.3%, and the proportion of good air quality days and water sections under national monitoring at and above Grade III (excellent) standards in water quality reached 79.6 and 92.4 percentage points respectively. The province has kept the water quality of the Jiangsu section of the mainstream of the Yangtze River at Grade II for 6 consecutive years and ensured non-occurrence of large-scale algae-induced black bloom of Taihu Lake for 16 consecutive years.
A total of 1.383 million new jobs were created in the province’s urban areas. The per capita disposable income of urban and rural residents hit 63,200 yuan and 30,500 yuan, respectively, representing growths of 5% and 7%. This development has narrowed the urban-rural resident income gap to 2.07:1.
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