"Hammering Nails with a Hammer": Bengbu, a Pragmatic Breakthrough of an Old Industrial City
In 1971, in two bungalows of Bengbu People's Printing Factory in Anhui, several veteran craftsmen led a group of local youths. Facing several old machine tools, they made a firm determination:
They must produce watches made by the people of Anhui themselves!
Several months later, this small team trial - produced a sample of the "Spark" brand watches, which symbolized that "a single spark can start a prairie fire." Two years later, "Spark" was renamed "Swan" and began mass - production and marketing in more than 30 cities across the country. The birth of this watch factory not only filled the gap in Anhui's light industry, but also injected the spirit of "starting from scratch and daring to explore and experiment" into the city's veins.
Swan brand watches produced by Bengbu Watch Factory
On January 4, 2026, more than fifty years later, which was the first working day of the new year, Ma Jun, the Secretary of the Bengbu Municipal Party Committee and the Mayor, seemed to be echoing this piece of history across time and space at the city - wide meeting.
His opening remarks were all straightforward:
"As the industrious people welcome the early spring, we should show a new look of forging ahead bravely."
The name of this meeting - "The City - wide Meeting on Strengthening Investment Promotion, Seeking Support from Higher - level Authorities, and Helping Local Enterprises Grow and Thrive to Promote High - quality Development" - declared that this old industrial city in northern Anhui was determined to regain its former glory through practical actions at the beginning of the 15th Five - Year Plan.
The "City - wide Meeting on Strengthening Investment Promotion, Seeking Support from Higher - level Authorities, and Helping Local Enterprises Grow and Thrive to Promote High - quality Development" in Bengbu
01 Bengbu, No Longer Silent
Today, cultural and creative products related to the phrase "Bengbu is holding up" are everywhere in major cultural and creative stores across China. However, few people know that this old industrial city has set several firsts in Anhui:
The first bicycle, the first watch, the first air compressor, and the first radio. In the 1980s, Bengbu's industrial output always ranked second in the province, and its economic aggregate was among the top three in the province.
However, after the reform and opening - up, Bengbu experienced a difficult transformation. With the change of the economic development mode, Bengbu's GDP ranking dropped all the way to the 5th place at the end of the 7th Five - Year Plan, the 10th place at the end of the 8th Five - Year Plan, and the 11th place at the end of the 9th Five - Year Plan. The industrial output dropped from 9.8% of the province's total in 1985 to 5.3% in 2000.
This downward trend was not reversed until recent years. In 2022, the Bengbu Municipal Party Committee and the Municipal Government achieved a rebound in economic growth by focusing on leading industries and improving investment promotion.
The urban scenery of Bengbu
Bengbu clearly realizes that to break through, it cannot rest on its laurels. It must focus on new industries and find new driving forces. Therefore, Bengbu has clearly defined "investment promotion, seeking support from higher - level authorities, and helping local enterprises grow and thrive" as the "three main channels" to drive development.
This approach is quite distinctive among ordinary prefecture - level cities.
Seeking support from higher - level authorities is the "decisive move" for Bengbu to break through. The "Hefei Model" proves that the development of good industries requires the tilt of government resources. Without start - up funds, it is difficult to talk about development and entrepreneurship.
Active government investment is a reassurance for attracting enterprises to settle.
Since 2024, the Bengbu Urban Management Bureau has accumulated 18.27 billion yuan in funds from higher - level authorities, driving an investment of 3 billion yuan. In 2025, they innovatively adopted the "municipal - level overall planning + bundled application" model and received a top - level support of 100 million yuan for the "two major" projects and 123 million yuan, the highest share in the province of the same kind, for the "two new" projects.
On the other hand, Bengbu Investment Group also established 7 new funds in 2025, with a new scale of 2.706 billion yuan, and successfully introduced 24 projects to settle. They invested 200 million yuan in Jiuzhou Yunjian through relay investment and joint investment to "lock in the leading enterprise in the commercial space industry chain."
The rocket engine test stand of Jiuzhou Yunjian in Dahongshan
Facing the reality of limited resources, Bengbu chooses to spend money on the most important things and concentrate its efforts on key areas related to new - quality productivity.
This approach in Bengbu soon achieved success. According to the prediction of Bengbu Economic Development Zone, in 2025, the added value of high - tech industries accounted for 100% of the added value of industrial enterprises above the designated size, being the only one in the city.
They promoted Huadong Optoelectronics and the Glass Innovation Center to be approved as public service platforms by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Throughout the year, they were approved for 5 provincial scientific and technological innovation key projects, accounting for 50% of the city's total.
Yuhui District established a three - library linkage mechanism of "planning library, reserve library, and implementation library". In 2025, they planned more than 400 projects in total, with a planned total investment of over 100 billion yuan.
The Organization Department of Wuhe County Party Committee compiled the "Map of Outstanding Talents from Wuhe County Working Outside", and "followed the map" to recruit talents in the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta. In 2025, they held 23 "Talent Tour in Wuhe" activities, introduced 3 full - time national leading talents, and innovatively launched the "Hongcheng Talent Card" to serve high - level talents.
From the glory of being "the second in the province" in the past, to the pain during the transformation period, and then in 2025, Bengbu presented a solid report card:
From January to November, 535 projects worth over 100 million yuan were newly signed, with a total annual investment of over 120 billion yuan; the commencement rate and the rate of being included in the statistics of the projects participating in the four - batch start - up mobilization in the province achieved "double 100%"; in the provincial tie - for - first place, 120 projects were supported by the central budget and ultra - long - term special treasury bonds, with funds of 5.23 billion yuan, an increase of 107% and 72% respectively compared with last year.
Bengbu is making efforts!
02 Working Hard with All One's Might
The transformation of Bengbu stems from the unwillingness and the courage to explore of an old industrial city. At this critical moment at the beginning of 2026, Bengbu has shown a new spirit of "hammering a nail with a hammer".
From the "First Meeting of the Spring Festival" to the "First Meeting of the New Year", it is not only an advancement in time but also a change in mentality - Bengbu cannot afford to wait or delay for a single moment.
"The achievements we have made so far are only preliminary and phased. We must not be complacent, slack off, or be negligent just because of a little progress." The speech of the Secretary of the Municipal Party Committee at the meeting put a footnote on Bengbu's work in the past year.
Then he even said bluntly:
"The achievements of development cannot be waited for, boasted about, or written down. They can only be achieved through hard work, with every drop of sweat counting."
"Busy as you may be, if you don't implement, it's all in vain. No matter how many strategies you have, if they don't produce results, they are all empty strategies."
At this meeting, which seems to be a "theoretical" meeting to the outside world, Bengbu loudly declared that "heroes should be judged by actual achievements, and cadres should be appointed based on actual achievements."
They clearly stated that "the number of cadres, their ranks, and their treatment should be given to those who can contribute to the accelerated high - quality development of Bengbu", setting up a clear orientation that "there is a difference between working more and working less, and between working well and working poorly."
The capable ones should be promoted, and the mediocre ones should be demoted. Only achievements can determine who is a hero.
Who should take the lead in bravely striving for economic development? Bengbu's answer is: Municipal - level leaders and the "top leaders" of counties and districts should actively seek support from higher - level authorities in investment promotion, serve and solve problems for enterprises, and take the lead in resolving risks and hidden dangers and solving prominent contradictions and problems.
There was even a rare statement at the meeting like "Welcome to assign tasks to municipal - level leaders."
The "courage to explore" is more obvious at the grass - roots level.
Facing the safety hazards of 98 group - rented houses in the Wanda area, Xuehua Township in Bengshan District jointly formed a special rectification team with 6 departments. Through the method of "combining dredging and blocking", they demolished 104 illegal partitions and actively coordinated suitable housing sources for tenants. They completed all the rectifications in only 3 months.
The Bengbu Market Supervision and Administration Bureau created the people - friendly brand of "You Choose, I Inspect". They implanted QR codes across the board online and carried out the "People's Inspection Day" activity on the 15th of every month offline. In 2025, they collected 6,263 questionnaires, organized 603 special inspections, and the qualified rate of food safety evaluation inspections was 99.08%.
This interactive supervision has won the trust of the people and also helped Bengbu rank among the top 2 in the province in food safety assessment for 11 consecutive years.
Starting from the little things and from the issues that the masses care about most, this work style is summarized by local cadres as "hammering a nail with a hammer" - no fancy tricks, just hitting the nail on the head one by one.
03 Breaking Through with Practical Actions
After being hammered thousands of times, a sword is finally forged.
In the past three years, great changes have taken place in Bengbu, from the industrial end to the people's livelihood end.
Take the emerging industries as an example. Bengbu is cultivating them as a new engine for high - quality development.
According to the information announced at the meeting, in 2025, a number of investment enterprises worth over 100 million yuan emerged in the city, among which there were a number of major projects such as COFCO Ice Dumplings, Xinyangfeng Technology, Guoyan Technology, and Yunta Electronics.
The implementation of these high - quality projects has injected strong impetus into emerging industries such as intelligent sensing, commercial space, and new materials.
Bengbu Commercial Space Industrial Park. Photo by Chen Ang
For example, the key technologies such as the "Breakthrough in Resonant On - Board Pressure Sensor" of Anhui North Huaxin Intelligent Sensing Technology Co., Ltd. have reached the international advanced level, filling the gap in the application of high - end aviation equipment in China.
The economic vitality of a region depends on the quantity and quality of market entities.
According to the data of the Bengbu Bureau of Statistics, in 2023, the proportion of the output value of strategic emerging industries in the city has increased significantly. Taking the intelligent sensing industry as an example, relying on the "China Sensing Valley", Bengbu has gathered a number of leading enterprises such as North Huaxin Intelligent Sensing and Xici Technology, forming a complete industrial chain from core chips to system integration and becoming an influential industrial cluster in the province and even the whole country.
In addition, Bengbu also has a national manufacturing innovation center for glass new materials and other national - level innovation platforms. Relying on leading enterprises such as Kisen Technology, this "national - level" platform has overcome a number of "bottleneck" technologies and successfully applied high - end products such as 0.12 - millimeter ultra - thin electronic touch glass to major national projects, fully demonstrating Bengbu's "hard power" in the field of innovation.
0.12 - millimeter ultra - thin electronic touch glass. Photo by Chen Ang
According to the data of the Anhui Bureau of Statistics, the regional GDP of Bengbu increased by 5.3% in 2023. More importantly, in the first three quarters of 2024, this growth rate further rose to 5.5%, which was higher than the provincial average.
Bengbu has achieved the best results since the 14th Five - Year Plan, fully indicating that Bengbu's economy has not only emerged from the downturn of the previous years but also returned to the "first echelon" of Anhui's development.
Real reform does not require grand slogans. It only requires hard work with every drop of sweat counting and the perseverance of hammering a nail one by one.
How did Bengbu win this turnaround battle?
In the view of Zhengjieju, first of all, there was a change in the development concept. Bengbu abandoned the "waiting, relying, and asking" mentality and regarded "seeking support from higher - level authorities" as a channel for driving force, and boldly tried in areas such as merger and acquisition investment promotion and capital investment promotion.
Secondly, a full - scale mobilization was carried out across the city. From the municipal Party committee and the municipal government to townships and sub - districts, an efficient and coordinated implementation system was constructed. A "