One month ago, the Shandong Provincial Government officially announced that its regional Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for 2025 reached 10.3 trillion yuan, marking a year-on-year increase of 5.5%. This figure signifies Shandong's entry as the third province in China, after Guangdong and Jiangsu, and the first in Northern China, to join the "10-trillion-yuan club." Standing at this historic new starting point, the next steps for this traditional industrial powerhouse are inevitably under intense scrutiny.
On the eighth day of the Lunar New Year, the first working day after the holiday, the Shandong Provincial Committee convened its "First Meeting of the Spring," themed around a "Provincial Conference on Ensuring a Strong Start to the '16th Five-Year Plan' through Entrepreneurship and Responsibility." The meeting outlined Shandong's development path for the new era using three key concepts: "big-picture perspective," "alignment and suitability," and "execution capability."
**From "Heavy" to "New": The Transformation Code Behind 10 Trillion**
"The past year has been extraordinarily challenging for Shandong, yet it was also a year of determined progress and encouragement," stated Lin Wu, Secretary of the Shandong Provincial Committee, during the meeting. Over the past year, Shandong delivered a strong performance, achieving a regional GDP of 10,319.7 billion yuan, making it the first northern province to surpass the 10-trillion-yuan mark. This represents the first expansion of the "10-trillion-yuan club" since Guangdong in 2019 and Jiangsu in 2020, and a historic breakthrough for northern provinces on the trillion-yuan economic track.
Years ago, Shandong was still grappling with an industrial structure characterized by "two 70%s": traditional industries accounted for 70% of industrial output, and heavy chemical industries accounted for 70% of traditional industries. A fundamental transformation was once considered a nearly impossible task. However, Shandong has demonstrated over five years of practice that traditional industrial bases can indeed achieve a "phoenix涅槃-like rebirth."
In 2018, Shandong formally initiated a major project for the conversion of old and new growth drivers, embarking on a profound transformation concerning its industrial foundation. The results of this shift are now clearly evident: in 2025, Shandong's industrial technological transformation investment increased by 5.3% year-on-year. The equipment manufacturing industry became a key force driving industrial growth, with its value-added increasing by 11.4%, 3.8 percentage points higher than the average for all industrial enterprises above a designated size, contributing 2.9 percentage points to the province's overall industrial growth. In terms of specific products, the output of medium and high-end equipment such as new energy vehicles, lithium-ion power batteries for vehicles, and industrial robots increased by 50.3%, 48.8%, and 26.6%, respectively.
"The most critical factor behind Shandong's GDP exceeding 10 trillion yuan lies in its unwavering promotion of the conversion of old and new growth drivers," said Zhang Huiqiang, Deputy Director of the Urban Innovation Department at the China Center for Urban Development and a research fellow, in an interview. He noted that Shandong avoided the old path of resource consumption and scale expansion. Instead, through "replacing the cage for new birds and achieving a phoenix涅槃-like rebirth," it successfully transformed its foundation as a major traditional grain-producing and industrial province into a new advantage for high-quality development.
From the perspective of Li Zhi, an Associate Research Fellow at the Institute of Spatial Planning & Regional Economy under the Chinese Academy of Macroeconomic Research, Shandong's path to cultivating new drivers is clear and resolute, primarily focusing on four directions. Seeking momentum from green transformation is a distinctive feature of Shandong's shift. "Five years ago, Shandong was still a major carbon-emitting province nationally; now, its carbon emissions trading volume and value rank first in the country," Li Zhi stated. Secondly, it seeks momentum from digital and intelligent transformation, comprehensively empowering economic and social transformation and development with digital technology and artificial intelligence. Currently, the coverage rate of digital transformation among Shandong's industrial enterprises above a designated size exceeds 95%. Third, it seeks momentum from aligning with and integrating into major national strategies, fully connecting with the ecological protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin. Leveraging its unique position as the basin's only maritime outlet and its rich marine resources, it supports the national strategy of building a strong maritime country, accelerating the conversion of comparative advantages into developmental successes. Furthermore, it seeks momentum from reform and opening up, continuously optimizing the business environment and invigorating the private economy. In 2025, the total value of foreign trade imports and exports reached 3.53 trillion yuan, setting a new historical record and contributing 9.1% to the nation's foreign trade growth. The intensity and resolve of reform have become crucial supports for Shandong's development.
With Shandong's rise, the national economic landscape is subtly changing. Compared to the other 10-trillion-yuan economic powerhouses, Guangdong and Jiangsu, Shandong's path to 10 trillion exhibits a distinctly different character. Zhang Huiqiang analyzed that Guangdong's development is primarily driven by an export-oriented model, technological innovation, and the digital economy, presenting relatively agile characteristics. Jiangsu is characterized by balanced development, with particularly outstanding performance at the city and county levels, boasting a very developed county-level economy and significant high-end manufacturing clusters. Shandong's characteristic, however, lies in the comprehensiveness and resilience of its full industrial chain, which is markedly different from Guangdong and Jiangsu. Shandong has pursued a path of upgrading traditional industries to high-end levels and making its heavy structure lighter. It has not shied away from traditional heavy industries but has instead transformed sectors like steel, chemicals, and equipment manufacturing into world-influential industrial clusters through intelligent upgrades and green transformation.
As the first northern province to enter the 10-trillion-yuan tier, Shandong undoubtedly provides a model for the economic development and industrial transformation of other provinces and cities. Zhang Huiqiang stated that Shandong's exploration and development in recent years prove that traditional industrial bases can achieve dual breakthroughs in both scale and quality through internal transformation and deepening reforms. This offers an important pathway for the transformation of many old industrial bases in Northern China and across the country.
**"Big-Picture Perspective, Alignment and Suitability, Execution Capability": Three Keywords Guiding High-Quality Development**
Ten trillion yuan is not an endpoint but a new starting point. Standing at the beginning of the "16th Five-Year Plan" period, how will Shandong achieve higher-quality development? At the meeting, Lin Wu pointed out that a new start requires the momentum of a new start and the actions of a beginning. Entrepreneurship and responsibility must be guided by scientific methods and a spirit of pioneering and forging ahead. There must be the courage to strive for first-class, setting challenging yet achievable goals. Efforts should focus on solving difficult problems, enhancing the spirit of responsibility, skillfully using reform methods, and strengthening collaborative thinking to continuously open new局面 by overcoming difficulties, battling risks, and meeting challenges.
Shandong's "First Meeting of the Spring" provided a clear answer: entrepreneurship and responsibility must be underpinned by a "big-picture perspective," enhanced "alignment and suitability," and forged "execution capability." These three keywords represent both Shandong's clear self-awareness regarding its own development and its action guide for the coming period.
So, how are these keywords to be implemented concretely? Zhang Huiqiang believes that regarding the broader development picture, Shandong needs to deepen regional coordination and actively integrate into national regional strategies. Currently, Shandong is tasked with leading the national strategy for ecological protection and high-quality development in the Yellow River Basin. It must fully leverage the leading role of the Shandong Peninsula urban agglomeration to drive coordinated development across the upper and lower reaches of the basin. Simultaneously, within the province, it must accelerate regional coordination, promoting differentiated and complementary development among the provincial capital economic circle, the Jiaodong economic circle, and the southern Shandong economic circle, facilitating the free flow of various factors of production.
Regarding "alignment and suitability," in Zhang Huiqiang's view, efforts should focus on the deep integration of the industrial chain and the talent chain. Shandong has already proposed its "Ten Strong Industries." It should map talent needs around these key industries to achieve precise matching between talent supply and industrial demand.
Concerning "execution capability," "it is essential to focus on removing institutional and mechanism obstacles and optimizing the performance evaluation system for officials. Evaluations should not only consider total GDP but also development efficiency, such as output per mu and per capita, as well as R&D investment intensity and achievements in green development. Scientific assessment should guide high-quality development," Zhang Huiqiang said.
**The "Growing Pains" Behind the 10 Trillion Yuan**
Beneath the光环, challenges remain significant. Population outflow, a shortage of leading enterprises in emerging industries, and uneven regional development... these have become Shandong's "growing pains."
The most core issue Shandong faces remains the continuous deepening of the conversion of old and new growth drivers. The Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee pointed out that the "16th Five-Year Plan" period is a critical time for consolidating the foundation and exerting full force to basically achieve socialist modernization. Li Zhi indicated that as a national industrial base and a major agricultural province, how Shandong can strengthen the foundations of national food security and industrial chain security while leveraging its comparative advantages to continuously cultivate new growth drivers is the core命题 for its future development.
In Li Zhi's view, Shandong has several major shortcomings that need urgent addressing: it must solve the problem of low overall efficiency in its innovation system, particularly by making up for shortcomings in higher education to support the conversion of old and new growth drivers and the development of emerging industries; it needs to continue expanding domestic demand. As both a major economic province and a major population province, how to utilize this scale advantage to cultivate new consumption growth points is a key focus for Shandong; it must address the短板 in modern services, especially producer services, to enhance its ability to aggregate and allocate high-end factor resources; it should persistently advance high-level opening up to narrow the gap with Guangdong and Jiangsu, establishing a high-level open economy hub in the northern region; and it must continue to vigorously develop the marine economy, promoting the construction of a robust maritime industrial system.
Issues such as uneven regional coordinated development and insufficient population attraction also constrain Shandong's development. "Regional coordinated development is not sufficiently balanced. The Jiaodong economic circle, including areas like Qingdao and Yantai, develops relatively quickly, but development in western and southern Shandong lags behind. The regional disparities within the province are quite pronounced, which restricts the full release of the province's development potential," Zhang Huiqiang said. "Moreover, western and southern Shandong have larger populations, so regional coordinated development still needs significant strengthening." He added that Shandong faces deficiencies in attracting population, coupled with the dual pressures of a relatively high degree of aging and the outflow of young talent. This poses significant constraints on building a talent support system for high-quality development and is a problem that requires substantial effort to resolve currently.
Furthermore, Zhang Huiqiang stated that Shandong currently lacks sufficient capability for originating innovation. While its application and conversion capabilities are strong, particularly in the mid-to-downstream industrial clusters, there is a considerable gap compared to Guangdong, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang in terms of basic and original innovation, top-tier research institutions, and leading scientific and technological talent. The capability to tackle certain critical bottleneck technologies still needs further enhancement.
After reaching 10 trillion yuan, Shandong's development is no longer a "contest of scale" but a "competition of quality." Addressing the innovation短板, narrowing regional disparities, retaining young talent, and unleashing the vitality of opening up—each task requires persistent and long-term effort. However, it is certain that as the first 10-trillion-yuan province in the north, every step of Shandong's exploration will provide important lessons for the coordinated development of China's regional economies.
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