CCTV News (News Network): During his work in Zhejiang, General Secretary Xi Jinping deeply explained the theory of "sweet potato economy", actively promoted the construction of an open economy, laying a solid foundation for Zhejiang's high-quality development and injecting sustained momentum. Over the past 20 years, Zhejiang has continued to make good use of the "sweet potato economy" theory and continuously strengthened the tubers of the "sweet potato economy", making Zhejiang a highland for reform and opening up and a hot spot for investment and business development.
In Ningbo Zhoushan Port, the average daily import and export of TEUs exceeds 100,000, and the cargo throughput is the world's first for 16 consecutive years.
In Yiwu, Jinhua, there are 18,000 permanent foreign investors, with more than 9,000 foreign investment entities of various types gathered here, and the average daily passenger flow in the International Trade City alone reached 220,000.
Today, Zhejiang's commerce is booming and vitality is surging. In the past, due to the "seven mountains, one water and two fields", Zhejiang has always faced factor constraints and resource and environmental pressure in its development.
In 2004, Comrade Xi Jinping, then Secretary of the Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee, vividly explained "break out of Zhejiang to develop Zhejiang" using the theory of "sweet potato economy" and clarified the development direction for Zhejiang at a critical period. In 2005, he further pointed out that with a strategic thinking, a broad vision and a pragmatic attitude, Zhejiang people should be encouraged to go global and invest in and start businesses, and at the same time, actively create a good development environment, attract domestic and foreign companies to invest in Zhejiang, and attract foreign companies to come back to invest.
Under the promotion of Comrade Xi Jinping, Zhejiang has coordinated the three tasks of "bringing in", "going out" and optimizing the environment, boldly explored in practice, and continuously opened up new worlds for reform and development.
At that time, Yiwu, which had made a big market with small commodities, was in a period of rapid development. As international trade volume began to exceed domestic trade volume, as a county-level city, the government's management authority could no longer keep up with the development speed. Comrade Xi Jinping has visited Yiwu many times for investigation. In November 2005, he asked the relevant provincial departments to send investigation teams to study policies to promote Yiwu's development and to break down institutional and mechanism barriers for development. After coming here for investigation again in 2006, Comrade Xi Jinping personally promoted the pilot work of Yiwu City to expand its economic and social management authority in November of that year. This is an unprecedented expansion of power, giving Yiwu more than 470 economic and social management authority at one time, including registration of foreign-invested enterprises and branches, annual inspections of foreign-invested enterprises and other projects. In 2007, Yiwu's foreign trade achieved rapid growth, and the regional GDP increased by more than 12% that year.
From improving the investment environment to strengthening investment promotion, Yiwu's development is a microcosm of Zhejiang's reform and opening up. Data shows that from 2003 to 2007, Zhejiang's introduction of foreign capital reached a new high, with a total actual use of foreign direct investment of US$39.1 billion, with an average annual growth of 26.8%. The practice of the "sweet potato economy" theory has greatly stimulated the vitality of market entities and social creativity. Anchoring the goal, Zhejiang will work one after another, and continue to build an open economy.
Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, General Secretary Xi Jinping has visited Zhejiang many times to draw a blueprint for development for Zhejiang in the new era. He stressed that Zhejiang should continue to write a new chapter in deepening reform and expanding opening up, and take reforms in key areas as the driving force, and comprehensively promote institutional and mechanism innovation in various fields.
Bearing in mind the instructions of the General Secretary, Zhejiang plans reforms from a perspective of serving the whole country and looking at the world: it has introduced 32 measures to promote the high-quality development of the private economy, and has put out real money to empower and increase policies to benefit enterprises; it has implemented regulations on optimizing the business environment, and implemented precise policies from nine aspects: improving the access and exit system, optimizing opening-up and improvement measures, and strengthening factor guarantee support.
Now, Zhejiang's attractiveness to high-end resource elements at home and abroad is constantly increasing. Nideco Group from Japan has 16 factories settled in Pinghu, Jiaxing. Over the past 20 years, the company has increased its capital 33 times, involving many fields such as motors and automobiles. As a pilot zone for high-quality foreign investment aggregation in Zhejiang, Jiaxing has attracted more than 10,000 foreign investment projects from 115 countries and regions to be implemented. In Hangzhou, the economic development level of headquarters has been accelerated, and the local government has carried out a "star" cultivation plan for headquarters enterprises to support the layout of headquarters enterprises and innovative institutions. At present, the construction of vivo Global Artificial Intelligence Headquarters located in Yuhang District is accelerating its construction. After completion, it will promote the gathering of the high-end industrial chain of the new generation of information technology in the field of artificial intelligence.
In 2024, Zhejiang established 1.625 million new enterprises and individual households, and the number of registered business entities reached 10.9517 million by the end of the year. Zhejiang's GDP exceeds 9 trillion yuan, of which the private economy accounts for 67.4%, contributing more than 80% of the province's imports and exports and more than 80% of the employment.
