After posting less-than-ideal recent economic results, Xi'an, the leading city in Northwest China, is accelerating its pace of industrial transformation. On May 11th, the Xi'an municipal government website released seven new industrial policies in quick succession, covering commercial vehicles, energy (oil and gas), semiconductors and photonics, power transmission and distribution, intelligent connected new energy vehicles, new materials, and biomedicine.
Currently, Xi'an is experiencing a "mix of ice and fire." Amid the wave of computing infrastructure construction, as the world’s largest production base for flash memory chips, Xi'an has suddenly emerged as the "biggest dark horse" in foreign trade. The stock price of local optical chip company Yuanjie Technology soared, briefly replacing Kweichow Moutai as the "new king" of A-shares.
However, the economic data for the first quarter, released not long ago, poured cold water on Xi'an—its GDP growth rate was only 1.1%, ranking second to last among the 29 cities with GDP exceeding one trillion yuan. The added value of the automobile manufacturing industry fell by 11.2% year-on-year.
The "15th Five-Year Plan" outline for Xi'an previously acknowledged that "effective qualitative improvement is constrained by structural contradictions where new quality drivers cannot shoulder the main burden in the short term, while reasonable quantitative growth is easily affected by the gradual weakening of the pulling force from existing pillar industries."
According to the latest plan, by 2030, Xi'an aims to achieve a total manufacturing output value of over 1.5 trillion yuan, equivalent to climbing a hundred-billion-yuan step each year based on last year’s figures. How much chance does Xi'an have of winning this manufacturing "gamble"?
Since May, Xi'an’s top party and government leaders have conducted intensive inspections in key development zones and industrial parks in Chang'an District and the Economic Development Zone, emphasizing the need to strengthen the positioning of these areas as the main battlefields for economic development. They highlighted the importance of using key zone development and construction as a carrier to create diversified investment and development platforms, revitalizing existing assets to drive incremental growth for connotative development, and deepening the integration of district and government reforms to improve resource integration and utilization efficiency.
These regions are precisely where Xi'an’s advanced manufacturing industries, such as aerospace and automobiles, are primarily concentrated.
On May 11th, the Xi'an municipal government website released seven specialized policies, including the "Implementation Plan for Promoting High-Quality Development of Xi'an’s Commercial Vehicle Industry Chain," the "Implementation Plan for Promoting High-Quality Development of Xi'an’s Semiconductor and Photonics Industry," and the "Implementation Plan for Promoting High-Quality Development of Xi'an’s Intelligent Connected New Energy Vehicle Industry Chain." All set targets for 2030—striving to make Xi'an a first-class national production and R&D base for commercial vehicles; achieving a cluster output value scale of 100 billion yuan for the energy (oil and gas) industry, building a nationally influential energy (oil and gas) industry cluster; striving to form a complete semiconductor and photonics industry chain with "design leadership, manufacturing dominance, packaging and testing support, and key materials and equipment support"; aiming to build a domestically leading innovation source and core competitiveness industrial highland for power transmission and distribution equipment; striving to make Xi'an a first-class national production, R&D, and application base for intelligent connected new energy vehicles; and building Xi'an into a nationally leading and distinctive national new materials industry base and innovation highland.
From "nationally influential" and "domestically leading" to "first-class nationally" and "innovation highland," Xi'an’s ambition to revitalize its manufacturing industry is evident. To this end, Xi'an must fully leverage its comparative advantages in advanced manufacturing, focusing on industrial output value, technological breakthroughs, and enterprise echelons to enhance the competitiveness of its industrial clusters.
This can hardly be said to be anything other than a "precise strike" by Xi'an. In the first quarter of this year, Xi'an’s GDP was 327.022 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 1.1%. This growth rate ranks only above Foshan among the 29 trillion-yuan cities nationwide and is at the bottom among the top 20 cities. The significant decline in industrial growth is the primary reason dragging down economic growth.
In the first quarter of this year, Xi'an’s value-added of industrial enterprises above designated size fell by 4.7% year-on-year, and industrial investment growth dropped by 19.1%, indicating a severe situation for stabilizing growth. Looking over a longer timeline, a weak industrial foundation has always been a shortcoming for Xi'an. The "Xi'an '14th Five-Year Plan' Industrial Development Plan" once admitted that Xi'an has a "small industrial scale, with industry being neither large nor strong," showing a clear gap compared to cities in the same category.
To reverse this situation, Xi'an has explicitly proposed implementing a new round of industrial doubling plan to improve the quality and proportion of manufacturing. According to the deployment of Xi'an’s "15th Five-Year Plan" outline, it is necessary to develop key manufacturing industry chains and clusters with "one chain, one policy," strengthen the development of industry chain clusters, strive to create trillion-yuan advanced manufacturing clusters, accelerate the leap of national-level advanced manufacturing clusters like Xi'an’s aviation cluster to world-class levels, promote the construction of national-level advanced manufacturing clusters in semiconductors and photonics, new energy vehicles, etc., drive the industry towards the mid-to-high end, and enhance the resilience and security level of the industrial and supply chains.
In recent years, Xi'an’s industrial development has not been without highlights. In 2022, Xi'an’s new energy vehicle production exceeded one million units for the first time, making it the top city in China for new energy vehicle production. This also helped Xi'an achieve a total output value of industrial enterprises above designated size exceeding one trillion yuan for the first time in 2025 (1.06 trillion yuan).
This rapid leap is attributed to Xi'an’s "leading enterprise + chain cluster" development model—leading enterprises like BYD, Geely, and Shaanxi Automobile Group drive the dual advancement of passenger car new energy and commercial vehicle heavy-duty truck chains; Changqing Oilfield leads the energy (oil and gas) industry cluster; Samsung, Micron, and Zhongke Weijing drive the semiconductor and photonics industry; China XD Group drives the power transmission and distribution equipment industry... It is precisely these industrial supports that have made Xi'an famous in emerging industry tracks.
However, shortcomings are equally apparent. In the early stages of industrial development, the test lies in market sensitivity and comparative advantages. But when industrial competition enters the "second half," hidden worries become prominent—the perfection of the industrial ecosystem constrains the explosion of industrial scale and the improvement of overall competitiveness.
For example, affected by factors such as industry cycles, Shaanxi’s automobile production plummeted by 50% in the first quarter of this year, and Xi'an’s value-added in automobile manufacturing fell by 11.2%, also exposing the risks of relying on a single leading enterprise. As Xi'an stated, "effective qualitative improvement is constrained by structural contradictions where new quality drivers cannot shoulder the main burden in the short term, while reasonable quantitative growth is easily affected by the gradual weakening of the pulling force from existing pillar industries."
Looking closely at the aforementioned seven plans, expanding industrial scale, improving parts support, and perfecting the industrial ecosystem are almost without exception heavily emphasized. Taking the automobile industry as an example, as a pillar industry accounting for over a quarter of Xi'an’s total industrial output value, Xi'an proposes to build a first-class national production, R&D, and application base for intelligent connected new energy vehicles by 2030—with the city’s intelligent connected new energy vehicle production exceeding 1.55 million units, ranking among the top in the country; the output value scale of the city’s power battery industry reaching 40 billion yuan, ranking among the top in the industry; the output value scale of traditional parts exceeding 35 billion yuan; and the output value scale of new parts exceeding 18 billion yuan...
Achieving these goals requires both tapping into the potential of complete vehicles to enhance supporting scale and strengthening technological innovation and perfecting the industrial ecosystem, fully demonstrating Xi'an’s determination to leap forward in the intelligent connected new energy vehicle industry.
During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, Xi'an built five 100-billion-yuan industrial clusters, including automobiles and electronic information. Entering the "15th Five-Year Plan," Xi'an will further promote the scale leap of emerging pillar industries such as intelligent connected new energy vehicles, semiconductors and photonics, and new energy, expand emerging leading industries such as new materials, biomedicine, aerospace, intelligent terminals, and spatiotemporal information, and support the proportion of Xi'an’s manufacturing added value in GDP reaching 20% by 2030—an increase of 1.87 percentage points compared to 2025.
As an emerging pillar industry, Xi'an’s intelligent connected new energy vehicle industry scale should exceed 310 billion yuan, the semiconductor and photonics industry scale should exceed 280 billion yuan, the new energy industry scale should exceed 160 billion yuan, and the aerospace industry scale should strive to exceed 130 billion yuan. This also means that the next five years will become the "decisive period" for Xi'an’s manufacturing industry.
In urban development, if you do not advance, you fall behind. The "15th Five-Year Plan" outline for Xi'an proposes to promote a new leap in the comprehensive strength of the national central city and enhance its level and position in the national development pattern—it is expected that by 2030, Xi'an’s GDP will reach 1.8 trillion yuan, striving to break through 2 trillion yuan, with the construction of the Western Economic Center reaching a new level.
In 2025, Xi'an’s regional GDP was 1.390267 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 4.7%. To sprint to 2 trillion yuan by 2030 means that Xi'an must continuously cross seven hundred-billion-yuan steps in the next five years, which is clearly a goal that requires "jumping to reach." Looking nationwide, wanting to achieve "position improvement" allows no room for delay.
Currently, nine cities including Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Suzhou, Chengdu, Hangzhou, and Wuhan have already broken through the 2 trillion yuan mark; Nanjing, Ningbo, Qingdao, Wuxi, Changsha, and Zhengzhou are also making every effort to sprint towards this goal. In this race for the "2 Trillion Club," Xi'an has no choice but to catch up.
The key to success or failure still lies in manufacturing. Currently, high-tech industries have become key variables for the leap in manufacturing. As the fourth city nationwide approved to build a "dual-center" city with a comprehensive science center and a scientific and technological innovation center, Xi'an has significant advantages in the integration of science and industry.
Whether it is intelligent connected new energy vehicles, new energy and new materials, or the semiconductor and photonics industry, the leap of these high-tech industries is inseparable from the support of strong innovation capabilities—and this is precisely where Xi'an’s endowment and confidence lie.
A specific goal is that by 2030, Xi'an will have more than 20 industrial enterprises with output values exceeding 10 billion yuan, and the city’s total manufacturing output value will strive to exceed 1.5 trillion yuan. Compared to the industrial output value that just exceeded one trillion yuan in 2025, Xi'an’s total manufacturing output value will at least cross five hundred-billion-yuan steps, becoming the key to whether Xi'an can stand on the 2 trillion yuan step.
This leap in positional energy level will also bring greater radiation effects. Looking nationwide, only when the central city has sufficient energy can it overflow into the broader hinterland of the metropolitan area, thereby optimizing resource allocation and completing key positioning on the national industrial map through cluster operations. From the Wuhan Metropolitan Area to the Chengdu Metropolitan Area, cluster operations in industries such as electronic information and intelligent connected vehicles are common.
For the Xi'an Metropolitan Area, a long-standing dilemma is the integration of Xi'an and Xianyang. Xi'an and Xianyang are adjacent, with their combined GDP reaching 1.7 trillion yuan, accounting for "half" of Shaanxi’s economy. However, for many years, the integration of Xi'an and Xianyang has progressed relatively slowly, restricting the development of the Xi'an Metropolitan Area.
In the eyes of outsiders, industry is the key to whether the integration of Xi'an and Xianyang can enhance regional competitiveness. The recently held Xi'an–Xianyang Integrated Development Promotion Conference positioned the "15th Five-Year Plan" period as a major strategic opportunity period to accelerate integrated development, clearly stating the need to "sing the 'tale of two cities' well" and create a new situation.
In the future vision, both sides should continue to promote industrial coordination and collaboration, integrate resource elements, innovate cooperation models, and jointly build upstream and downstream connected, cross-regional collaborative industry chain clusters. Whether the two cities can set aside differences and join forces in battle also determines the improvement of urban energy levels and the direction of regional development.
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