A major industrial city poised to cross the 5-trillion-yuan threshold has rolled out new development targets.

Suzhou to add another 1 trillion yuan to its total industrial output of enterprises above designated size in the next five years

According to Suzhou Daily, the 14th Congress of the Communist Party of China Suzhou Committee opened on September 20. For future development, the report of the municipal Party congress pointed out that efforts should be focused on 12 key tasks to write a new chapter of high-quality development through accelerated breakthroughs in work across all fields.

Focusing on highlighting the strategy of building the city with strong industries, strengthening the city through innovation, and invigorating the city via opening-up, the report proposes to accelerate breakthroughs in developing new quality productive forces in line with local conditions. After five years of efforts, Suzhou will push the total industrial output of enterprises above designated size to increase by another 1 trillion yuan, speed up the formation of 4 trillion-yuan-level and 15 100-billion-yuan-level industries, and cultivate 1 to 2 additional Fortune Global 500 enterprises.

It will accelerate breakthroughs in the in-depth integration of scientific and technological innovation and industrial innovation, build a key fulcrum of the Shanghai (Yangtze River Delta) International Science and Technology Innovation Center at a high level, promote the construction of the Wusong River Science and Innovation Belt, Sangtian Science Island, Taihu Optics Valley and other projects, fully support the construction of the Suzhou National Laboratory, push the R&D investment intensity of the whole society to reach around 4.8%, and cumulatively cultivate more than 1,500 national-level "little giant" enterprises specializing in sophisticated, unique and advanced technologies and over 25,000 high-tech enterprises.

From the perspective of the national industrial layout, as the "No.1 Industrial City", Shenzhen recorded a total industrial output of enterprises above designated size of 5.44 trillion yuan in 2025; Suzhou and Shanghai are both at the "4-trillion-yuan" level — Suzhou's total industrial output of enterprises above designated size exceeded 4.9 trillion yuan in 2025, while Shanghai reached 4.07 trillion yuan in the same year.

That means, while Suzhou is striving to become the country's second "5-trillion-yuan city" in terms of total industrial output of enterprises above designated size this year, it has set the next target of reaching another trillion-yuan level within five years.

Looking back at the past five years, Suzhou's total industrial output of enterprises above designated size exceeded 4 trillion yuan for the first time in 2021. At that time, in the outline of the 14th Five-Year Plan, Suzhou set its own goal of "striving to raise the total industrial output of enterprises above designated size to 4.5 trillion yuan by 2025".

The progress is faster than expected. In 2024, Suzhou updated its goal at the "first meeting of the new year" — within about 3 years, it will strive to foster four trillion-yuan leading industries including electronic information, high-end equipment, advanced materials and new energy, push the total industrial output of enterprises above designated size to 5 trillion yuan, and drive the GDP to reach the 3-trillion-yuan level.

At present, Suzhou already has three trillion-yuan-level industries, namely electronic information, equipment manufacturing and new materials. The new energy industry will become its next key industry to break the trillion-yuan threshold. Suzhou has previously proposed to accelerate the construction of a "6+1" new energy industry system mainly supported by photovoltaic, energy storage and power batteries, wind power, smart grid, hydrogen energy, green and low-carbon sectors, as well as new energy vehicles.

On this basis, where will the new increments come from? Suzhou once conducted a self-analysis, noting that its biggest advantage lies in the manufacturing industry, but the proportion of traditional industries is still relatively large, making transformation and upgrading particularly urgent. It must adhere to the "two-legged walking" approach: on the one hand, seize the "time window" to accelerate the intelligent transformation and digital transformation of traditional industries; on the other hand, focus on expanding emerging industries and actively develop future industries.

In fact, as the starting point and connection point of many industrial cycles in the Yangtze River Delta region and even across China, Suzhou boasts a complete industrial system and rich application scenarios, which can build a global intelligent manufacturing test field. The report of the Suzhou Municipal Party Congress this time proposes to build an "AI+" city at a high level, coordinate the development of the artificial intelligence industry and its empowerment of all sectors, and concentrate efforts on "AI + manufacturing".

In addition, Suzhou will also vigorously develop ten key emerging industries including biomedicine, semiconductors, and embodied intelligent robots, and make forward-looking arrangements for ten key future industries such as commercial aerospace and quantum technology.

This article is from the WeChat official account "City Evolution Theory", author: Yang Huan, and is published with authorization from 36Kr.