Ningde: Developing Along the Coast, Integrating Industry and City for Sustainable Growth

In Eastern Fujian in March, spring is bursting forth. A yearly report has once again put Ningde in the spotlight of the economic landscape.

On March 9th, CATL announced: 2025 revenue of 423.702 billion yuan, up 17.04% year-over-year; net profit of 72.201 billion yuan, up 42.28% year-over-year.

What has made “CATL” successful? From overcoming obstacles to standing in the spotlight, a company’s ability to focus on real industry and pursue innovation relies on a high-quality business environment. Ningde plays the role of a “caring partner,” supporting project implementation with proactive efforts, improving the industrial ecosystem through strategic planning, and easing corporate worries with warmth.

Beyond data, a more important question is: why can a once “old, young, border, island, and poor” region nurture both a global leader in power batteries and a giant in stainless steel? When world-class industries deeply embed into the city fabric, what exactly has Ningde done right?

The answer lies in the underlying logic of a city and a group of “golden” enterprises empowering each other and moving forward together.

The “Chain Reaction” of Industry

Walking into Fuan Bay Port Peninsula, beneath busy factories, lies a vast mudflat. In 2008, Qingtuo Group established here, and now it has grown into a global stainless steel “champion” with an output value exceeding 230 billion yuan. Nearby, at Chijian Lake, CATL has spent over a decade achieving a nine-year streak as the world’s top market share in power batteries.

The rise of these two world-class giants may seem coincidental, but in fact reflects Ningde’s deep insight into industrial logic.

Many places focus on attracting investment with individual projects, resulting in a scattered industrial landscape. Ningde, however, has grasped the “nexus”—not just a leading enterprise, but a “tropical rainforest” of industry. Take lithium batteries as an example: after CATL settled in Ningde, the city quickly introduced the “Seven Measures for Lithium Batteries,” not just policies but targeted services and a “招商地图” (investment promotion map). From cathode materials to cell manufacturing, from equipment to recycling, hundreds of supply chain companies in Ningde have achieved “door-to-door” collaboration.

This “chain reaction” generates powerful externalities: transaction costs are minimized, technological spillovers foster innovation, and single-point breakthroughs rapidly evolve into cluster advantages. Today, one in three new energy vehicles worldwide is equipped with batteries made by Ningde.

More profoundly, Ningde has not let the four main industries—new energy lithium batteries, new energy vehicles, stainless steel new materials, and copper materials—operate in isolation. Instead, it has connected the industry chain, building a circular network from raw materials to end-use applications and recycling. From “chain” to “cluster,” Ningde’s industrial ecosystem demonstrates resilience against risks and synergistic growth.

Breaking Through Space Constraints

With industry highly concentrated, how can products efficiently go global?

Ningde boasts one of the few “world-class” and the only “Chinese” Sandu’ao port, but previously suffered from infrastructure shortcomings, facing the dilemma of “good wine fearing deep alleys.” This changed dramatically in 2025. In December 2025, with the completion of container handling at Zhangwan Operations Area, Ningde Port’s cargo throughput first exceeded 100 million tons, officially becoming a “mega-port.”

More critical than throughput is the transformation in cargo structure. An old port worker pointed at the dock and said: “In the past, it was sand, bulk cargo; now, it’s cars, batteries, and stainless steel—all high-value-added goods.”

The port and industry are shifting from a “supporting role” to mutual reinforcement. The opening of Fuzhou Port (Ningde) and the Raoping “enclave port” marks the formation of a “port + industry + hinterland” synergy, with Ningde’s hinterland extending into inland areas like Jiangxi. The former fishing port of Eastern Fujian, now supported by billion-yuan clusters in new energy and stainless steel, is becoming an important maritime node connecting the Yangtze River Delta and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area. Ports are no longer just supporting facilities but strategic partners in industry upgrading.

The “Siphon Effect” of Innovation

Urban competition centers on people. Ningde provides an unconventional example—despite lacking first-tier city resources, it has created an agglomeration effect where “nearly half of China’s lithium battery PhDs are in Ningde.”

What’s the secret? It’s the “siphon effect” created by industrial highlands.

Here, PhDs are essential links in the industry chain. Over the past decade, CATL has invested over 80 billion yuan in R&D, attracting more than 20,000 researchers worldwide; Qingtuo Group’s R&D team exceeds 900, with deep collaborations with Fudan University, Zhejiang University, and others. For scientific talent, this place offers not only competitive salaries but also cutting-edge research topics—heroes have a stage here.

Deeper still is the support from high-level innovation platforms. The National Engineering Research Center for Electrochemical Energy Storage, Fujian Province Stainless Steel Industry Innovation Center, and others have been established. In 2025, Ningde was selected among the top 100 global innovation clusters, ranking 4th worldwide in innovation intensity, with a R&D intensity of 3.81%. According to the World Intellectual Property Organization, Ningde’s per capita PCT patent applications lead globally.

Talent competition ultimately boils down to “opportunity.” When the industry chain is deep enough and innovation platforms are high enough, cities can break physical space limitations, allowing talent to “vote with their feet” and cross mountains and seas to come.

The “Symbiotic Logic” of the City

Industrial rise and talent influx drive a redefinition of urban capacity.

In February, Ningde designated the construction of a modern bay city as the “Number One Project” in its 14th Five-Year Plan. This shift signifies a fundamental change in development logic—from past tactical promotion centered on industrial projects to a strategic upgrade led by urban planning.

“Building a modern bay city is a heavy responsibility Ningde must shoulder, a millennium plan benefiting future generations, and a rare opportunity,” said Ningde Party Secretary Zhang Yongning, describing its strategic importance with the “Three Thousands” concept.

The planning team brought in by Ningde—Academician Chen Wen from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Professor Yang Junyan from Southeast University—introduced new ideas: the city is no longer just supporting industry but coexisting and growing with it.

This coexistence is reflected in spatial restructuring: creating a “ring bay, facing the sea, integrated city” pattern, with the Wenfu High-Speed Railway and G228 Coastal Passage enabling a “half-hour commuting circle”; in functional integration: ports as logistics channels, factories as innovation nodes, the city as an application scenario—these layers empower each other; and in the “soft environment”: over 2,000 talent apartments, the establishment of high-quality facilities like Beijing Normal University’s experimental school and Shanghai Medical College’s Ningde Hospital, making talent “not want to leave once they arrive.”

As CATL expands its global headquarters and Qingtuo Group builds stainless steel towns, the relationship between enterprises and the city has shifted from simple tax and land supply to a deep “development partnership.” From physical “industry-city integration” to chemical “industry-city symbiosis,” the entire city is becoming an experimental ground and application scene for industry, elevating its capacity.

When first-tier cities face space saturation and rising costs, cities like Ningde—with deep-water ports and systemic thinking—are achieving “overtaking on the curve” in emerging industries.

Ningde’s transformation is a “Shan Hai Jing” written by industry and city together. Its story proves that for late-developing regions to leap forward, they must do more than just “absorb spillover”; they need to “systematically reshape.” By building an industrial ecosystem, reshaping spatial value, creating innovation highlands, and promoting industry-city co-evolution, Ningde has turned the “golden fault line” into a “golden growth pole.”

As CATL Chairman Zeng Yuqun said: “We will sell China’s products worldwide and promote our technology and standards globally.” This is not only the enterprise’s ambition but also the city’s aspiration. Ningde, with its systemic transformation, is providing a vivid example of regional coordinated development in the new era. This is China’s path to modernization—“Ningde Practice.”