China’s regional powerhouses turbocharge high-quality development

Having long propelled China’s economic ascent, major provincial-level regions are now leading the charge in the country’s transformative shift toward high-quality development. China’s top 10 provincial economic heavyweights, including Guangdong, Jiangsu, Shandong, Zhejiang and Sichuan, accounted for over 60 percent of the country’s GDP, despite covering less than 20 percent of its land area. Their development is redefining China’s economic landscape and providing insights into how the world’s second-largest economy navigates domestic and global challenges in the final year of the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) to lay a strong foundation for the next five years and beyond. INNOVATION AS THE…