Wenzhou, known as "China's top city for private enterprise," has become the latest member of the "trillion-yuan GDP club." On January 3, 2026, the Wenzhou Municipal Party Committee's Economic Work Conference and the Promotion Meeting for Building an Innovative Wenzhou were held. The meeting emphasized that this year marks the starting point for Wenzhou's new journey after entering the ranks of "trillion-yuan cities." This also signifies that Wenzhou's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is expected to have successfully surpassed the one trillion yuan mark in 2025. Behind this achievement, Wenzhou, once globally famous for traditional light industrial products like lighters, footwear, and apparel, is accelerating its industrial transformation and upgrading by revitalizing traditional sectors and vigorously developing emerging industries. During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the proportion of Wenzhou's high-tech industries surged from 60.9% to 73%.
Ye Jianliang, Executive Deputy Director of the Zhejiang University Yangtze River Delta Integration Development Research Center, stated in an interview that Wenzhou's entry into the "trillion-yuan city" club is closely linked to local efforts to continuously promote industrial transformation and upgrading, as well as enhancing the city's overall capacity. However, Wenzhou still faces shortcomings in areas such as innovation resources and external transportation. In the future, it needs to leverage institutional innovation to aggregate innovation resources and overcome bottlenecks in the development of new industries.
During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, Wenzhou's GDP increased by nearly 300 billion yuan, crossing three hundred-billion-yuan thresholds in four years, marking a remarkable resurgence as a "dark horse" in the national economic landscape. As a vital birthplace and major hub of China's private economy, Wenzhou has recently focused on becoming Zhejiang Province's "third pole of high-quality development." It is accelerating the upgrading of its "sweet potato economy" as a top priority open project, striving to build itself into a high-level open pioneering city, and has achieved a series of developments in economic aggregate and urban capacity. "The past five years have been extremely challenging and unforgettable in Wenzhou's development history," said Xiang Weisheng, Secretary of the Party Committee and Director of the Wenzhou Development and Reform Commission. He noted that Wenzhou's economic aggregate successively surpassed the 800 billion yuan and 900 billion yuan milestones, and is projected to break through 1 trillion yuan in 2025.
Relevant data shows that in 2020, Wenzhou's GDP was 687.09 billion yuan. In 2021, it crossed the 700 billion yuan mark, reaching 758.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 7.7%. In the following years, Wenzhou's GDP continued its upward trajectory, reaching 802.98 billion yuan in 2022, 873.06 billion yuan in 2023, and 971.88 billion yuan in 2024. In fact, Wenzhou has long aspired to join the "trillion-yuan city" ranks. At Wenzhou's "first meeting of the new year" in 2025, Zhang Zhenfeng, Secretary of the Wenzhou Municipal Party Committee, emphasized mobilizing the entire city's strength to reach the new level of a "dual-ten-thousand" city (trillion-yuan GDP and ten-million permanent residents) and accelerate the building of Zhejiang Province's "third pole."
Explaining the goal of becoming Zhejiang's "third pole," Xiang Weisheng stated that it entails not only ranking third in provincial economic aggregate but also achieving comprehensive strength enhancement, quality transformation across all sectors, and a new pattern of bearing greater responsibility through broader vision, higher targets, faster speed, stronger influence, and superior quality. It is understood that Wenzhou's ranking in the national urban GDP standings has been consistently rising. In 2024, Wenzhou's economic aggregate surpassed that of Xuzhou and Dalian. In the first half of 2025, it overtook Tangshan, which had already entered the "trillion-yuan club" in 2024, making its full-year performance for 2025 highly anticipated.
Ye Jianliang commented that Wenzhou's accession to the "trillion-yuan club" holds symbolic significance for optimizing Zhejiang Province's regional development pattern. He noted that Hangzhou, Ningbo, and Wenzhou are located in northern, eastern, and southern Zhejiang respectively, forming a "tripod" that provides a foundational support for the province's spatial layout.
What is the "secret" behind Wenzhou's ultimate success in the race to join the "trillion-yuan GDP club"? Ye Jianliang attributed it to four key factors closely related to Wenzhou's entry: the continuous promotion of industrial transformation and upgrading, persistent enhancement of the city's capacity, ongoing optimization of internal and external transportation conditions, and constant improvement of the business environment. For instance, regarding enhancing urban capacity, Ye analyzed that by continuously improving the urban living and entrepreneurial environment and boosting the development of new industries, Wenzhou has strengthened its ability to attract population, particularly talent, injecting powerful human capital support into economic development.
Furthermore, in terms of developing strategic emerging industries, Ye Jianliang noted that Wenzhou has focused in recent years on fostering new industries such as the digital economy, new energy, new materials, intelligent equipment, and life sciences. The proportion of high-tech industries has consistently risen, and modern industrial clusters have continued to grow and strengthen. Xiang Weisheng previously stated that Wenzhou is steadily advancing industrial transformation and upgrading, accelerating the cultivation of its "5+5+N" industrial system, and driving growth through both manufacturing and services. It has nurtured two 300-billion-yuan industrial clusters in electrical equipment and new energy, with the electrical industry being selected as a national advanced manufacturing cluster. The new energy industry is rapidly building a comprehensive chain covering nuclear power, wind power, photovoltaics, hydropower, energy storage, hydrogen, and storage.
Xiang also revealed that during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the number of industrial enterprises above designated size in Wenzhou expanded from 5,963 in 2020 to 9,357, the number of high-tech enterprises reached 4,772, industrial added value exceeded 300 billion yuan, and the proportion of strategic emerging industries further increased. Information provided by relevant Wenzhou departments also showed that in the first ten months of 2025, the value added of local industrial enterprises above designated size increased by 10.1% year-on-year, and manufacturing investment grew by 25.6%, both ranking first in Zhejiang Province.
In the field of emerging industries, Wenzhou has developed a momentum where a "single tree can grow into a forest." Ding Jianzhong, Member of the Party Committee and Deputy Director of the Wenzhou Economy and Information Technology Bureau, stated that during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the share of high-tech industries in Wenzhou rose from 60.9% to 73%, and the proportion of strategic emerging industries increased from 26.4% to 31.2%. "Our city has developed a batch of hardcore 'fist products,' ranging from small items like Xingyao Semiconductor's RF filter chips to large equipment like Pentium Laser's intelligent laser cutting成套 equipment for high-speed, high-precision, ultra-thick plates. The 'gold content' of 'Made in Wenzhou' has taken a significant leap forward," Ding said.
It is understood that at Wenzhou's Zhuangyuan'ao Port Area, the construction of the nation's first wind power mother port designed for deep-sea projects is in full swing, aiming to form a trillion-yuan wind power industrial cluster by 2030. Meanwhile, Yueqing City is home to the country's only national advanced manufacturing cluster led at the county level—the Yueqing Electrical Industrial Cluster. In Ye Jianliang's view, the private economy also plays a massive role in the transformation of Wenzhou's industrial structure from old to new动能. "The private economy has always been the main force driving Wenzhou's development. The continuous elevation of Wenzhou's economic development to new levels is inseparable from consistently burnishing the 'golden name card' of its private economy."
"The private economy also assumes a leading role in industrial innovation. The vast majority of Wenzhou's current emerging industries have developed under the leadership of private enterprises," Ye stated. He added that the extensive market networks of private enterprises provide both information for Wenzhou's industrial transformation and upgrading, and markets and channels for the development of emerging industries.
Amid increasingly fierce regional economic competition, Wenzhou, while achieving a leap in GDP, urgently needs to address its own "shortcomings." Public data indicates that by the end of 2024, 27 cities in China had GDP totals exceeding 1 trillion yuan. In the future, the "trillion-yuan GDP club" will further expand, intensifying competition among cities for industrial, talent, and innovation resources.
Specifically within Zhejiang Province, Ye Jianliong provided a detailed analysis, noting that compared to Hangzhou and Ningbo, Wenzhou's shortcomings are quite evident. For example, external transportation remains a weakness, and innovation resources are relatively insufficient. "There is particularly a lack of high-level innovation platforms and research institutions, as well as a shortage of high-level innovative talent. Wenzhou's emerging industries lack strong industrial chain entities and leading chain-master enterprises, which affects industrial competitiveness and the aggregation of core elements."
In recent years, Wenzhou has already planned ahead and laid the groundwork to promote scientific and technological innovation. Taking the recent "New Year's First Meeting" as an example, the Wenzhou Municipal Party Committee's Economic Work Conference and the Promotion Meeting for Building an Innovative Wenzhou held on January 3, 2026, marked the fifth consecutive year that the city has themed its "New Year's First Meeting" around talent and technological innovation. Information from relevant Wenzhou departments indicates that for Wenzhou to achieve high-quality and sustainable economic development, it must carry innovation through to the end. Facing new missions, new stages, and new tasks, only innovation can turn positioning into status, enable catching up during advancement, and transform variables into increments. "We must steadfastly follow the 'one path up Mount Hua' of innovation-driven development," a responsible person stated.
It is understood that in recent years, through measures such as accelerating the implementation of a city-wide large-scale incubator cluster strategy and building itself into a pioneer city for AI innovation and development, Wenzhou has made a series of progress and breakthroughs in innovation. During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, Wenzhou's full society R&D expenditure as a percentage of GDP increased to 2.76%, exceeding the national average. Additionally, Wenzhou's ranking in scientific and technological innovation competitiveness rose from 32nd to 26th nationally. Jin Longjun, Member of the Party Committee and Deputy Director of the Wenzhou Science and Technology Bureau, recently stated that Wenzhou is anchoring itself to the strategic goal of becoming Zhejiang Province's "third pole." It is positioning the construction of the "large incubator cluster" as the core lever for cultivating new quality productive forces, and systematically exploring and practicing three innovative paths: an innovation promotion mechanism, optimization of spatial layout, and upgrading of factor allocation.
"Over the past three years, the number of incubating enterprises has grown more than fourfold, and the gathering of young innovative and entrepreneurial talent has exceeded 120,000 people. China Digital Security Port has risen from an old industrial zone, aggregating 916 enterprises to become a new highland for the digital industry; 'China Eye Valley' practices the 'integration of production, life, and ecology,' receives over 200,000 visitors annually, and has transformed into a new landmark of technology and humanities," Jin Longjun explained.
In Ye Jianliang's view, for the future, Wenzhou must, on one hand, fully leverage the flexible institutional advantages of its private economy, use institutional innovation to aggregate innovation resources, and break through bottlenecks in new industry development. On the other hand, it needs to achieve differentiated development, especially in the context of rapid AI advancement, by innovating in application scenarios and empowering industrial development with artificial intelligence. According to officials from relevant Wenzhou departments, Wenzhou has taken the lead nationally in establishing a municipal-level artificial intelligence bureau. In the future, it will strengthen the effective supply of computing power, develop the data industry, promote demonstrative scenario applications, and build itself into a pioneer city for AI innovation and development.
"Artificial intelligence has moved from the 'future tense' to the 'present tense' and is a crucial lever for Wenzhou to promote high-quality development both now and in the future," Zhang Zhenfeng previously stated. He added that Wenzhou will build an industry-academia-research collaborative innovation ecosystem and promote the high-quality development of the AI industry with practical measures.
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