County-level economies have gradually come to account for half of the nation’s economic output.

In 2023, the county-level economy accounted for 38% of the nation’s total GDP. Even more notably, among China’s top 100 county-level economies, 54 counties have joined the “100-billion-yuan GDP club.”

In the competition among county-level economies, attracting investment has become the focal point of efforts across all districts and counties.

Strategy determines the path forward; approach determines the outcome.

For the vast majority of counties and districts, how should they strategically plan and precisely target investment?

After analyzing the investment promotion experiences of dozens of top-100 counties and reviewing speeches by county party secretaries, the author has summarized the following insights, hoping they will be helpful to everyone.

01 Leverage Resource and Geographical Advantages to Create an Investment Magnet

“Attract what you have” is gradually becoming the new guiding principle for investment promotion.

The essence of this approach lies in deeply exploring and utilizing local “treasures”—that is, unique resources—to attract investors who are interested in and have a need for these resources.

Take Yunhe County in Lishui City, for example.

This small county—with a limited area, sparse population, and underdeveloped transportation and logistics infrastructure—has successfully built a distinctive wood toy industry by leveraging its abundant forest resources, cost advantages, and early capabilities in hardwood processing. This has attracted numerous enterprises to cluster in the county, creating a significant industrial agglomeration effect.

Currently, Yunhe County is home to over 1,100 wooden toy enterprises. Yunhe’s wooden toy products span ten major categories, thousands of series, and tens of thousands of varieties, selling well in 82 countries and regions worldwide. The county’s total production accounts for 66% of China’s output in this sector and 40% of the global total.

How did they achieve this? The answer lies in starting from the specific needs of potential investors and leveraging and amplifying local advantages.

As a result, investors seeking specific resources are naturally drawn to the area to establish businesses and jointly build a competitive industry.

Once the leading industry gains a firm foothold, related supporting industries will naturally follow in droves, creating a strong clustering effect.

Furthermore, geographical advantages cannot be overlooked, and Cixi serves as a prime example.

This county, ranked among China’s top 100 and situated on the coast of the East China Sea, seized the historic opportunity presented by the construction of the Hangzhou Bay Bridge. Leveraging its unique geographical advantages, it successfully attracted leading manufacturing enterprises from Shanghai, Hangzhou, Ningbo, and even foreign investors to set up operations there.

Building on their own foundations and fully leveraging their cost advantages, they are committed to establishing themselves as a major manufacturing hub in the southern wing of the Yangtze River Delta.

Since 2000, the area has attracted nearly 1,000 foreign-invested enterprises and fostered 36 specialty industrial clusters with annual output exceeding 100 million yuan.

Counties and districts adjacent to provincial capitals or first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou can similarly leverage their locational advantages to proactively attract enterprises from provincial capitals that are facing rising costs and seeking new development space.

By offering high-quality services, comprehensive supporting facilities, and more competitive cost advantages, these counties and districts have the opportunity to absorb industrial spillover, attract enterprises to establish production bases here, and thereby drive the upgrading and development of local enterprises.

02 Leveraging Industrial Chain Advantages to Achieve Targeted Investment Promotion

When discussing industrial chain-based investment promotion, one cannot fail to mention Kunshan, which tops the list of China’s Top 100 Counties.

Today, Kunshan’s electronic information industry boasts an output value of over 600 billion yuan, making it the undisputed pillar of the local economy. Behind this impressive achievement lies the power of its sophisticated industrial chain investment strategy.

At the beginning of this century, Kunshan astutely seized the opportunity presented by the global shift in electronic information industry production capacity, successfully attracting half of the top ten laptop contract manufacturers from Taiwan, thereby laying the foundation for the industry’s development.

Kunshan fully understood that to truly secure a competitive edge, it must continuously deepen its industrial chain and fill every gap wherever possible.

Consequently, they dissected every component of a laptop, meticulously analyzing which production stages were not yet covered locally, and then targeted their investment promotion efforts accordingly.

After several years of effort, they had established production capabilities for nearly all laptop components.

At that time, Kunshan alone shipped over 60 million laptops, accounting for half of the global market.

However, a large industrial scale does not necessarily equate to strong core competitiveness.

Consequently, despite immense pressure, they set their sights on the transformation and upgrading of the optoelectronics industry, successively attracting industry giants such as Longteng Optoelectronics, AU Optronics, and Visionox, thereby securing a foothold in the panel industry.

To this day, Kunshan continues to adhere to its signature approach of “industrial chain investment promotion,” constantly striving to create, build, stabilize, and strengthen industrial chains.

Sectors such as automotive components, integrated circuits, and biopharmaceuticals have all formed complete industrial chains in Kunshan, with industrial innovation clusters becoming a widespread trend.

The saying, “Upstairs and downstairs represent upstream and downstream; the industrial chain is the industrial park,” vividly illustrates Kunshan’s meticulous planning of industrial chains over the years.

For counties and districts, it is essential to have an accurate positioning and a clear focus when attracting investment.

For example, they can focus on leading industries, conduct research on industrial chains, and gain a thorough understanding of the spatial layout and business models of these chains, as well as identify leading enterprises, upstream and downstream relationships, and the competitive and cooperative dynamics across all links in the chain. This approach enables them to grasp industrial development trends and prospects.

In this process, a comprehensive industrial chain map can be developed to identify gaps and weak links, enabling targeted investment attraction to strengthen, extend, and reinforce the industrial chain.

03 Using Big Data as a Guide to Identify Investment Targets

Now that the investment promotion methodology is clear, we come to the question everyone is most concerned about: how to identify investment targets?

First and foremost, we must build upon our own industrial strengths and target industries that are closely related to us and resonate with our own.

In this process, we can leverage big data for layered screening and in-depth analysis to precisely identify regions that are closely linked to our local flagship industries and have a high degree of resource compatibility.

Once the investment targets are identified, the next step is to assemble a capable investment promotion team to travel to various locations and conduct on-site investment promotion activities.

Whether in developed regions experiencing industrial spillover or areas with complementary industrial resources, we should demonstrate our strengths and explore potential partnerships with sincere dedication and professional expertise.

However, the path to investment promotion is not always smooth sailing.

Many counties and districts commonly face issues such as insufficient coverage by investment promotion teams, a lack of clear direction, and inadequate precision. To address these challenges, some county-level cities have begun seeking external expertise.

Guchuan Lianxing has been deeply rooted in the investment promotion industry for 15 years. We have not only accumulated over 114,000 project resources but also forged a first-class investment promotion team, becoming a trusted service provider for regional economic development.
Take Luzhou’s Jiangyang District as an example: in the process of developing the new materials and display industries, they chose to partner with Guchuan Lianxing.

Leveraging its investment promotion service network spanning 18 cities nationwide, GuChuan United utilizes "Internet + Big Data + Investment Promotion" channels to conduct in-depth analysis and research on vast amounts of investment information. From this, they identify key target regions while thoroughly analyzing companies’ investment intentions, development plans, and core concerns.

Subsequently, the investment promotion team focused its efforts on these priority areas, fully committed to identifying target enterprises that closely aligned with Jiangyang District’s industrial development needs and actual conditions.

Ultimately, they successfully attracted a "New Materials and Display" project from a Hong Kong-based enterprise with a total investment of approximately 500 million yuan. The factory covers an area of 12,500 square meters and is projected to generate 1.15 billion yuan in sales revenue within five years of production commencement.

Using big data as a guide, keeping pace with resource trends, precisely targeting objectives, and leveraging professional strategies to advance investment promotion efforts.

In this way, we are certain to ride the waves and stand at the forefront of the surging tide of county-level economic development.