In the first half of this year, Datong ranked first in six economic indicators in Shanxi province: its GDP growth rate, its above-scale industrial added value growth rate, the number of days with good air quality, its safe production indicator, export growth and airline passenger capacity growth.

Faced with the pressure of an economic downturn, Datong is striving to maintain economic development through strengthening its competitive industries and has received good effects. The city government is mainly taking three measures to boost its economy.

Industrial upgrade. Starting from new energy as a breakthrough, Datong is focusing on the upgrade of coal, wind, photovoltaic and gas power generation, to energetically promote the integration of coal & electricity and the photovoltaic industry chain’s development. At present, the annual coal output in Datong is steady at 0.1 billion tons; wind power output is 1.11 million KW; photovoltaic power output is 0.2 million KW. Meanwhile, emerging industries are growing vigorously. In the first half year, pharmacy, mechanical manufacturing, tourism, modern services and other industries saw substantial growth. For modern agriculture, 26 agricultural parks have been newly built in the first half year in the whole city.

Investment structure optimization. In the first half year, secondary industries have accomplished an investment of 9.67 billion yuan ($1.6 billion), up by 5.7%; primary and tertiary industries saw substantial growth in investment with 3.59 billion yuan and 17.04 billion yuan, up by 62.7% and 14.3% respectively; the investment of non-coal industries and emerging industries have been growing continuously with 27.75 billion yuan and 4.06 billion yuan, up by 25% and 35.1%, respectively; private investment is invigorated and up to 16.48 yuan, up by 37.9% accounting for 54.4% of total social investment.

Giving full play to local advantages: As part of the strategy of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei’s integration development, Datong is actively undertaking engineering construction and has accelerated the pace of opening-up. The Datong-Zhangjiakou High-speed Railway Project is being promoted in an orderly fashion; the construction of the Beijing–Urumqi inter-provincial highway in Xinjiang autonomous region will be commenced soon; and a Datong-Zhangjiakou-Urumqi economic cooperation framework agreement has been signed. In the first half year, total export and import volume of foreign trade was up to $269.53 million, up by 18.2%; the passenger throughput of Yungang Airport has reached 193,100, up by 16.83%.

Highlighted projects

● 600,000t methanol project of Datong Coal Mine Group: a provincial key project, with a total investment of 3.62 billion yuan. The project has been completed and is undergoing trial manufacturing at present.

● Datong-Zhangjiakou Railway Project: the total investment is 19.6362 billion yuan. After completion, it will improve the interregional connections in North China, optimize the structure of the railway network, promote service quality and boost the economic and social development in the area.

● The demonstration project of the clean utilization of low metamorphic gas coal: its total investment is 28.8 billion yuan.