Another city with a population of more than 10 million is on its way.

01

Foshan, Aiming for a 10-Million Permanent Resident Population

By the end of 2025, 18 cities across China had a permanent resident population exceeding 10 million. The next city to join the 10-million-population club has become a target competed for by many cities, and Foshan is one of them. 

At the end of 2025, Foshan's permanent resident population stood at 9.7919 million, only 210,000 short of the 10 million target. Last year, the increment of Foshan's permanent resident population reached as high as 93,000, ranking the 6th across the country. Over the past five years, except for the special year of 2022, the annual permanent resident population increment of Foshan has generally stayed around 80,000. 

In the era of national population decline, as an ordinary prefecture-level city, maintaining such population increment has given Foshan great confidence to hit the 10-million-population target. It can be said that as long as no major unexpected situation occurs, there is little suspense that Foshan's population will exceed 10 million within five years. By then, Foshan will become the fourth city in Guangdong with a permanent resident population over 10 million, following Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Dongguan. 

The Foshan Population Development Plan (2025-2030) released by Foshan this year puts forward that the permanent resident population will reach 10.16 million by 2030. To achieve this target in a faster and steady manner, Foshan released the Provisional Regulations on the Administration of Household Registration in Foshan (Draft for Comments) on October 14, which has loosened the current settlement policies implemented since 2024 in many aspects. 

For example, the ordinary employment-based settlement policy has been extended to 9 cities in the Pearl River Delta. People who have stably worked in the 9 mainland cities in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area for 3 full years, have continuously and stably worked in Foshan for the latest 2 years, and have completed residence registration in the 9 aforementioned cities at the time of application can apply for settlement. In terms of education-based settlement, non-full-time academic qualifications, qualified graduates from technical colleges, and certified overseas academic qualifications are explicitly included in the scope of state-recognized college education and above.

Although the policies have been loosened a lot, I still think Foshan is too conservative. 

On one hand, at the moment when the whole country has entered the era of population decline, many central cities have launched zero-threshold settlement policies, including Zhengzhou, Kunming, Shijiazhuang, Nanchang, Yinchuan, Fuzhou, Jinan and Dalian. In addition, the settlement thresholds of Xi'an, Wuhan, Chengdu, Chongqing and other cities have also been reduced to the minimum. Ordinary prefecture-level cities should completely remove the household registration barriers and directly implement zero-threshold settlement policies. 

On the other hand, Foshan's economy has encountered development bottlenecks since 2024, and it needs population inflow more than many other cities to break the deadlock of industrial development. This point will be analyzed in detail in the third part of the article. 

02

Who will be the first to cross the finish line

In addition to Foshan, Nanjing, Wenzhou and Ningbo will also join the 10-million-population club in the next five years. In particular, Wenzhou will be the first one among the 6 near-10-million-population cities to cross the finish line, becoming the 19th city with a permanent resident population exceeding 10 million, as well as the 17th "Dual 1000 Billion" city. After all, Wenzhou is only 98,000 people short of the 10 million population target, and its population increment still reached 50,000 last year. In as fast as two years or as slow as three years, Wenzhou will achieve the goal as expected.

The situation of Harbin is full of great uncertainties.

On one hand, the overall trend of population outflow in Northeast China has not changed. In particular, Heilongjiang is still a major province with large population outflow. Under this background, whether Harbin can maintain its population increment is a big question mark.

On the other hand, according to the permanent resident population data of Harbin released by Heilongjiang Provincial Bureau of Statistics, the figure fluctuates greatly. The population increased by 392,000 in 2022, and also increased by 82,000 in 2024. The population increment dropped to 29,000 in 2025. If the increment continues to decline in the next five years, there is little hope for Harbin to return to the 10-million-population club.

Ningbo and Foshan are also very close to the 10 million population mark. According to the current population increment, as long as there is no great fluctuation, it is highly possible for their permanent resident population to exceed 10 million during the 15th Five-Year Plan period.

Jinan seems to be the farthest one from the 10 million population target among the six cities. Its permanent resident population at the end of last year was 9.616 million, 384,000 short of 10 million. However, its population increment last year ranked first among the six cities, the 5th across the country, and the first among northern cities. If this momentum can be maintained, there is great hope for Jinan to realize its 10-million-population dream within five years.

Nanjing is a city that seems to have great suspense on the surface among the six cities. On one hand, it is far from the target, with a gap of 361,500 people to 10 million permanent residents. On the other hand, its population increment is not significant enough.

However, if Nanjing's population increment reaches 61,500 in 2025, and it can continue to maintain this increment in the next five years, it will also cross the 10 million population threshold by the end of 2030.

In addition to the above cities, Kunming, which failed to achieve its population target in the 14th Five-Year Plan period, has set a new 10-million-population target for itself in the 15th Five-Year Plan period.

At the beginning of this year, Kunming once again put forward the "Dual 1000 Billion" target in its 15th Five-Year Plan: by the end of the 15th Five-Year Plan period, the GDP will exceed 1 trillion yuan, and the permanent resident population will exceed 10 million. It is not difficult for Kunming to achieve the GDP target, after all, its GDP base last year has reached more than 860 billion yuan, and it is not difficult to increase 140 billion yuan in five years. 

However, the 10-million-population target will most likely still be missed, for two reasons: 

First, it is far from the 10 million population mark. At the end of 2025, Kunming's permanent resident population was 8.744 million, with an increment of 57,000 people, which is 1.356 million people short of 10 million. And the 57,000 population increment is most likely the best figure Kunming can achieve in the next five years. It is almost impossible to increase more than 1 million people in five years. 

Second, the industrial competitiveness of Kunming is too weak, and its economic development is in a dilemma. The GDP growth rate of Kunming from 2022 to 2025 was all lower than the national average. In the first quarter of this year, the GDP growth rate of Kunming was 3.2%, 1.8 percentage points lower than the national average. In the first half of this year, Kunming's GDP reached 451.794 billion yuan, with an actual growth rate of 2.6%, 2.1 percentage points lower than the national average, ranking the 8th last among 27 provincial capitals and capital cities of autonomous regions. 

The reason for the sharp slowdown of economic growth is that Kunming chose to develop real estate when it should have focused on industrial development the most. Now the real estate sector is in full adjustment, and there are no other competitive industries to offset the negative impact. Behind population competition is industrial competition. Industry is the foundation of employment. Without competitive industries, how can a city attract population? 

Therefore, no matter from which perspective, it is impossible for Kunming to achieve the 10-million-population target by the end of the 15th Five-Year Plan period. 

03

Industrial revitalization is the best way to attract population

Compared with Kunming, although Foshan is facing development difficulties in its economy, its population increment last year was still very impressive, reaching 93,000, ranking the 6th across the country. 

However, this is mainly the result of location dividend. In the past two years, with the change of macroeconomic environment and the increasing difficulty of making profits at the micro level, risk aversion has become the mainstream, which has further enhanced the value of coastal areas. 

Therefore, more population has flowed from inland areas to the Pearl River Delta in the past few years, where people can get higher income, more employment opportunities, while the living cost is lower than that of the Yangtze River Delta. As a core city in the Pearl River Delta, Foshan has achieved the contrast of impressive population increment even when its economy faces development bottlenecks, thanks to this location dividend. 

To form real strong population competitiveness, Foshan still needs to focus on industry, accelerate the reform of old industries and the layout of emerging industries. The development bottlenecks Foshan has encountered since 2024 are mainly caused by the decline of industry and export. The core reason for the decline of industry and export is that Foshan's industries are deeply tied to the real estate sector which is undergoing comprehensive and in-depth adjustment. This is the fundamental reason why Dongguan and Foshan both encountered development bottlenecks, but Dongguan can quickly stabilize while Foshan still has not achieved sound growth. 

Under the continuous slowdown of growth rate, Foshan's economic ranking was surpassed by Jinan last year, and this year it will lose its position as the third largest city in Guangdong in terms of economic aggregate. 

Dongguan's economic growth rate was low in 2023 and 2024, but it made adjustments quickly. Dongguan is completing a status transformation, evolving from the "World Factory" to a city with "advanced manufacturing plus independent brands".

The economic growth rate of Dongguan has picked up this year.

Foshan is also in the process of self-adjustment. On one hand, it is upgrading traditional industries; on the other hand, it is focusing on the layout of emerging industries such as new energy, new materials, robotics, high-end equipment, biomedicine and semiconductors, to optimize its industrial structure. In 2024, Foshan issued the Action Plan for Accelerating the Empowerment of Foshan Manufacturing with Artificial Intelligence, proposing to implement a three-year action for intelligent upgrading of trillion-yuan industrial clusters.

In 2026, Foshan released the Foshan Implementation Plan for Further Promoting the "Three-pronged Drive" and Accelerating the Construction of a Strong Smart Manufacturing City (2026-2028), proposing to "take three-pronged simultaneous actions" including traditional industry upgrading, emerging industry expansion and future industry layout.

However, since most of Foshan's industries are deeply tied to the real estate sector, it is difficult for a large ship to turn around, so the effect of adjustment will not be as fast as that of Dongguan. But this step cannot be bypassed, and Foshan has to do what Dongguan is doing.

In fact, although Foshan's GDP still decreased in the first half of this year, we should also notice some positive signals.

For example, the actual growth rate finally turned positive. For export, after continuous adjustment, the growth rate finally bottomed out and turned positive. In the first half of the year, the total import and export volume reached 257.54 billion yuan, up 10.1% year on year, 0.4 percentage points higher than that in the first quarter. Among them, exports reached 199.66 billion yuan, up 8.8%; imports reached 57.88 billion yuan, up 15.0%.

In addition, Foshan has achieved initial results in industrial transformation and upgrading.

In the first half of the year, the added value of the computer, communication and other electronic equipment manufacturing industry, the power and heat production and supply industry, the electrical machinery and equipment manufacturing industry, and the food manufacturing industry increased by 9.3%, 9.1%, 3.2% and 1.0% respectively.

New quality productive forces are being cultivated at an accelerated pace. The high-tech manufacturing industry above designated size increased by 11.6%, among which the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry and the electronic and communication equipment manufacturing industry increased by 15.7% and 13.0% respectively.

The output of some new kinetic energy products grew steadily. The output of lithium-ion batteries, industrial robots, optoelectronic devices, sensors and semiconductor discrete devices increased by 41.0%, 27.6%, 10.3%, 16.0% and 11.1% year on year respectively; the production capacity of advantageous products above designated size grew rapidly, and the output of household washing machines and household refrigerators increased by 38.9% and 20.9% respectively.

What Foshan needs now is patience and determination. It needs to cultivate a second growth curve with real scale as soon as possible during the window period of the alternation of old and new kinetic energy. Only in this way can it finally embrace bright prospects, and make a strong comeback like Guangzhou and Dongguan. Only in this way can it form real population competitiveness.

This article is from the WeChat Official Account "City Finance", written by Yu Fei, and authorized for release by 36Kr.