In accordance with the unified deployment of the “Million Project” by the Provincial Party Committee, a counterpart assistance and cooperation partnership has been established between Longhua District and Chaoyang District of Shantou City since 2023. Following the “1+2” work approach, the two sides have focused on co-building industrial parks and developing “reverse enclaves”, while simultaneously attracting investment and improving the business environment, and deepened assistance and cooperation in various fields including industrial collaboration, rural revitalization, education and medical support.
Up to now, a special fund of 120 million yuan has been allocated for industrial collaboration to plan 27 industrial projects; more than 430 million yuan of assistance funds have been invested in rural revitalization, with 18 assistance projects completed. Chaoyang District has been consecutively listed among the Top 100 Districts in China for New Urbanization Quality in 2023 and 2024. This cross-regional “two-way pursuit of development” has delivered a solid and remarkable performance report.
Boosting Economic Development: Co-built Industrial Parks Play a Pivotal Role
Co-built industrial parks serve as an important carrier for collaborative assistance. The Longhua-Chaoyang Co-built Industrial Park is based on the Haimen Industrial Transfer Main Platform, radiating the Shantou International Textile City and major areas of Haimen Town. The starting area of the park is the Shantou Green New Material Industrial Park, which broke ground in January this year. With a planned initial phase area of 2,092.59 mu, the park prioritizes the development of high-end electronic chemicals, new energy, textile and garment materials and other industries. It aims to build a benchmark for modern new material industries in eastern Guangdong and even the whole province, and support Shantou in building a new material industrial cluster with an output value exceeding 100 billion yuan. One listed enterprise has settled in the park with an investment of 260 million yuan. Among the projects, the construction site of the Pilot Test Base and Industrial Platform Project with a total investment of 990 million yuan is in full swing. At present, more than 1,000 construction workers and a large number of mechanical equipment are participating in the construction, and the five main buildings will be capped in the near future.
Jiang Yongshun, Executive Deputy Manager of the China National Chemical Engineering Project, said, “With the care and support of governments at all levels, we are advancing all construction tasks to high standards and stringent requirements, coordinating resource allocation in an overall manner, formulating scientific construction plans, and making every effort to solve various difficult problems in the construction process. All builders are seizing the golden period for construction to ensure the on-schedule delivery of all milestones.”
Driven by the radiation effect of the co-built industrial parks, the vitality of the regional and town-level economies has continued to surge. Haimen Town and Gurao Town have been the only two towns in Shantou listed among the Top 1,000 Towns in China for three consecutive years. Haimen Town has been selected as a National-level Strong Agricultural Industry Town and a Provincial Rural Revitalization Demonstration Town; Heping Town and Gurao Town have been included in the Top 500 China Town-level Economies in 2025; Gurao Town and Jinzao Town have been designated as specialized towns under the provincial “Million Project”.
Meanwhile, the parks have provided solid platform support for the high-quality development of industries. The textile and garment industry, one of Chaoyang’s three pillar industries, has achieved industrial chain consolidation and supplementation. At present, the district has more than 46,000 business entities and 367 industrial enterprises above designated size in the textile and garment sector, an increase of 37% and 22.3% respectively compared with the end of 2022. The first phase of industrial plants of the Shantou International Textile City Project — the largest-scale, best-equipped and most complete industrial chain textile complex in China — was delivered in September 2024. All 500 shops in the China Knitted Fabric Trading Market (North Area) were fully occupied and opened for business in March 2025, setting a new benchmark of the “Chaoyang Speed”. A number of domestic and foreign leading textile and garment enterprises such as Santoni and Huafeng Chemical have settled in the park one after another, injecting strong impetus into the development of the industrial cluster.
Liu Xiaohua, responsible person of Santoni Concept Collection Store, expressed full confidence in investing in Shantou, “Shantou is an industrial base with a well-developed textile industry and complete supporting facilities, and we have many customers here. That is why we chose to open our fourth concept store at the Shantou International Textile City. More importantly, we have received strong support from all local sectors, with excellent park services, complete supporting facilities and convenient transportation.”
Transplanting Digitalization Experience to Help Enterprises Reduce Costs and Increase Efficiency
During the three years of assistance and cooperation, Chaoyang District has also transplanted Longhua District’s experience in industrial digitalization in a well-adapted manner. It has set up an industrial digitalization ecological alliance covering 19 service providers and leading enterprises, and settled the first provincial-level Industrial Digitalization Empowerment Center under the “Million Project”. The Textile and Garment Digitalization Empowerment Platform was officially launched and put into operation on the “Chaoyang Government Online” mini-program and the district government portal website simultaneously at the end of October 2025.
The Implementation Plan for the Special Fund Supporting the Digitalization of the Textile and Garment Industry in Chaoyang District has been issued, with a maximum subsidy of 1 million yuan for a single enterprise. Two batches of 25 enterprises have applied for the subsidy this year, with a total declared subsidy fund of more than 12 million yuan. At present, five enterprises have completed their digital transformation. Among them, after introducing the MES Manufacturing Execution System and WMS Intelligent Warehouse System, Guangdong Bailian Enterprise has reduced labor costs by 20%, improved warehouse management capacity by 50%, increased monthly production capacity by 34% and raised product qualification rate by 1.5%. The full-chain digital system has injected strong momentum into the high-quality development of enterprises.
Guo Yingyan, responsible person of Guangdong Bailian Digital Intelligent Manufacturing Industrial Park, said, “Through digital transformation, our entire business chain has become much smoother. Firstly, robots operate across floors, transporting fabrics from the auxiliary material warehouse to the intelligent manufacturing workshop for cutting. After sorting, the cut pieces are directly sent to the cutting piece supermarket, and then the bin robots deliver them according to our order sheets, which are transported to the hanging system via the MES system. Once the cut pieces enter the production line, finished products can be produced within one hour.”
Beyond key areas such as park co-construction and technological empowerment, the counterpart assistance and cooperation between Longhua District and Chaoyang District have also extended to rural revitalization, education and medical support, and the construction of “reverse enclaves”, forming an in-depth integration pattern that is comprehensive, multi-level and wide-ranging, and achieving two-way interaction, co-construction and win-win results with remarkable effectiveness. Over the past three years, Longhua and Chaoyang have continued to make efforts in policy coordination, resource sharing and mechanism innovation. These efforts have not only significantly enhanced Chaoyang’s industrial strength, regional vitality and development potential, but also expanded the industrial development space and enriched the cooperation ecology for Longhua District, achieving a collaborative effect of “1+1>2”. This cross-regional cooperation has accumulated momentum and empowered the high-quality development of both places, boosting the provincial “Million Project” to achieve initial results within three years.
