In recent years, Liaocheng in Shandong province has been ramping up efforts to build a competitive manufacturing sector and cultivate emerging industries to increase the momentum of economic development.

An aerial photo of Liaocheng, Shandong province [Photo/Dazhong News]

According to official statistics, in the first half of this year, the added value of the city's manufacturing industry accounted for 27.3 percent of its GDP, an increase of 0.6 percentage points year-on-year. The industrial tax revenue grew by 16.8 percent year-on-year, accounting for 45.6 percent of the city's total tax revenue.

Among the 32 industrial categories in Liaocheng, 23 registered positive growth, with key industries such as equipment manufacturing, chemical industry, medicine and food growing by 18.8 percent, 7.1 percent, 46 percent and 17.6 percent, respectively.

In the first half of the year, Liaocheng added six provincial technological innovation demonstration enterprises, six quality benchmark enterprises, 36 technological innovation projects, 120 outstanding small- and medium-sized enterprises and nine gazelle enterprises, demonstrating the gushing vitality in the city's manufacturing industry.

An automatic production line at a smart manufacturing company in Liaocheng [Photo/Dazhong News]

Liaocheng is a typical agricultural city in Shandong province, attracting 486 agricultural and sideline product processing enterprises to invest and build factories in the area.

The city continues to promote the high-end, digital, intelligent transformation of the equipment manufacturing industry to help optimize the industrial structure.

At present, Liaocheng has formed 20 key industrial chains including agricultural and sideline product processing, agricultural machinery and high-end equipment, and green chemicals.

The city is working to attract high-quality projects from Fortune 500 companies and domestic industrially leading companies to inject vitality into the manufacturing industry.

Since the beginning of this year, the city has signed 221 new investment projects each worth over 100 million yuan ($14.8 million), with a total planned investment of 73.74 billion yuan.