Baiyin is an emerging industrial city. After 1949, following national policies regarding resource exploitation and utilization, the nonferrous metal industries in Baiyin developed rapidly, breaking records in copper production, output value and profits tax in China for almost two decades.

The chemicals industry developed, with the city’s non-ferrous metals production capability reaching 680,000 tons, and with a raw coal production capacity of 13 million tons, and total installed power generation capacity of more than 4 million kilowatts.

In addition, the building materials industry, equipment manufacturing industry and agricultural product processing industry also began to take shape. Baiyin city was recognized as one of the country’s first group of transformed resource-exhausted cities, a demonstration base of new industrialization and the key city of circular economy development in Gansu province.

Baiyin is a large-scale high-lift irrigation district in the upper reaches of the Yellow River, which flows through Baiyin for 258 kilometers and is another advantage for the development of agricultural irrigation.

A total of 15 medium and large-scale water lifting projects - such as those in the counties of Jingidan, Jinghui and Xingdian - have been completed, and the total effective irrigated area of the city reaches 93,333 hectares. The total value of livestock and vegetable output accounts for 55 percent of the city’s total agricultural output, and Baiyin city is a vital area for the province’s anti-season vegetables and mutton.

The administrative map of Baiyin city [Photo provided to China Daily]