Zhejiang targets 5% annual growth in next 5 years

East China's Zhejiang province has made remarkable achievements in economic and social development during the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) period, and is set to witness more breakthroughs in the next five years, according to the CPC Zhejiang Provincial Committee.

The province's GDP grew from 6.7 trillion yuan ($943.80 billion) in 2020 to 9 trillion yuan in 2024, with its share in the national total rising to around 6.7 percent. Per capita GDP increased from $14,600 to $19,000 for the same period, and is expected to exceed $20,000 this year, according to a news conference held by the provincial committee in capital city Hangzhou on Saturday.

Meanwhile, Zhejiang's exports expanded from 2.5 trillion yuan in 2020 to 3.9 trillion yuan in 2024, with its share in the national total rising from 14 percent in 2020 to approximately 15.5 percent in 2024. Ningbo-Zhoushan Port, one of the world's busiest and largest, saw its container throughput grow from 28.72 million twenty-foot equivalent units in 2020 to 39.30 million TEUs in 2024.

The overall development of the province is also more balanced, it said, as the income ratio of its urban and rural residents narrowed from 1.96 in 2020 to 1.83 in 2024. The economic growth rate in its mountainous regions, which are poorer, was higher than the provincial average as well during the same period.

Moreover, R&D investment intensity — the ratio of R&D spending to GDP — increased from 2.77 percent in 2020 to 3.22 percent in 2024, with emerging tech startups continuing to mushroom. The "Six Little Dragons", namely Game Science, DeepSeek, Unitree Robotics, DEEP Robotics, BrainCo and Manycore Tech, a group of such startups receiving widespread acclaim, are a case in point.

For the upcoming 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) period, Zhejiang province will target economic growth at about 5 percent annually, so that its per capita GDP can reach the levels of developed economies by 2030, a major goal specified for this period, according to the conference.

More specifically, Zhejiang will focus on the establishment of a modernized industrial system, high-quality opening-up, high-level cultural development, high-quality rural-urban integration, high-level ecological development and more modernized governance, among six other major areas.

Notably, the province aims to achieve global leadership in the core technologies of artificial general intelligence, or AGI, and their industrial applications, and cultivate a group of globally competitive and influential AI enterprises. Ultimately, a total operating revenue of 1.2 trillion yuan in the province's above-designated-size AI core industries will be reached, according to the conference.