Even before the festive atmosphere of the Spring Festival fully fades, the Chongzhou Economic Development Zone is already buzzing with activity, accelerating its drive towards new heights.

At the Qingchong Aviation Technology Industrial Park, the construction site of the Zhongfa Tianxin aviation engine production base is a hive of activity following the holiday break. Workers are stationed at their respective posts, efficiently transporting building materials and commissioning equipment. With a total investment of 2.25 billion yuan, this project aims to establish a leading high-altitude simulation test platform in China and plans to achieve an annual production capacity of 200 light aviation engines by 2027.

Not far away, at Sandiego Technology's workshop, technicians are closely monitoring precision equipment screens, performing laser drilling and metallization filling of glass substrates at the micrometer level. Established in Chongzhou in 2024, this tech innovation enterprise leverages its core glass via technology and has secured orders through June—not only meeting domestic military-electronics demand but also fulfilling orders from the U.S. market.

In the patch cord production workshop of Huiyuan Plastic Optical Fiber, workers are busy producing, inspecting, and packaging products for orders, with 6,000 reels ready for export. This first batch of "specialized, refined, distinctive, and innovative" enterprises in Sichuan Province resumed production as early as the fourth day of the Lunar New Year and is now operating at full capacity to fulfill both domestic and international orders.

These scenes are not just routine post-holiday resumptions but reflect a profound transformation in Chongzhou's industrial landscape:

Chongzhou Economic Development Zone stands out as the sole representative among eight county-level new cities in Chengdu's recently announced pilot list for the “Two New Initiatives, Two Degrees of Excellence”. It has successfully joined Chengdu’s “vanguard” in exploring new pathways for high-quality development of development zones. This achievement is no accident but the result of years of strategic accumulation in Chongzhou.

From promoting key industries to build clusters and strengthen chains, to enhancing industrial concentration and factor intensity, Chongzhou is embarking on a bold industrial upgrading reform, striving to break into the top 100 counties nationwide and achieve a trillion-yuan economic development zone.

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To grasp Chongzhou's current industrial transformation, one must examine the historical trajectory of its industrial evolution.

As a typical agricultural county on the Western Sichuan Plain, Chongzhou lacked a local industrial base before the new century. It was not until after 2000, when rising costs in the furniture industry in Guangdong and Zhejiang prompted a group of Sichuan entrepreneurs to return home for investment, that Chongzhou seized the opportunity. By introducing special support policies and guiding industrial agglomeration, it finally formed a representative industry as the “China Panel Furniture Industry Base.”

Riding the wave of the information revolution after 2010, Chongzhou embraced the era's changes, leveraging the intelligent transformation and upgrading of traditional furniture to actively integrate into the electronic information industry chain. It gradually established a dual-driven industrial pattern of “electronic information + smart home.” Especially since 2020, BYD's establishment in Chongzhou has driven the agglomeration of dozens of upstream and downstream enterprises such as LY Technology and Furong Technology, forming industrial clusters in smart terminals and new displays.

Building on this foundation, since 2023, Chongzhou has capitalized on the strategic window of the low-altitude economy. Leveraging Chengdu's foundational advantages in the aviation industry, it has introduced core projects such as Zhongfa Tianxin (aviation engines) and Guoxing Aerospace (commercial satellites), securing a key position in “future industries” such as aerospace and the low-altitude economy.

Thus, Chongzhou has transitioned from “single-point breakthrough” to “systematic layout” in its industrial pattern, forming a characteristic industrial cluster of “one primary (electronic information), one emerging (aerospace), and one specialized (smart home).”

After more than two decades of accumulation, Chongzhou now boasts two 10-billion-yuan industrial clusters: the smart home industry accounts for about three-quarters of Chengdu's scale and nearly half of Sichuan's; the electronic information industry has aggregated 50 above-scale enterprises, with the overall industry scale surpassing 30 billion yuan.

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Currently, the global industrial chain is undergoing profound restructuring, with traditional cost and scale advantages being replaced by systemic and ecological advantages. A region's competitiveness no longer depends on the number of factories it has but on the industrial ecosystem it has built—whether tight value chains can be formed between leading and supporting enterprises, between manufacturing and R&D links, and between hardware facilities and software services.

Chongzhou's “one primary, one emerging, one specialized” industrial cluster is precisely a strategic positioning based on its own endowments and external opportunities amidst this trend.

In electronic information, the Chengdu-Chongqing region is building China's “fourth pole” in the electronic information industry, aiming to exceed 3 trillion yuan in output value by 2025. Within this grand strategy, Chongzhou focuses on niche segments such as smart terminals, new displays, and automotive electronics, achieving vertical integration from “key components—core modules—terminal manufacturing” and has aggregated 50 above-scale industrial enterprises, creating a strong magnetic effect.

In smart homes, from traditional furniture manufacturing to smart home systems, from single-product production to scenario-based solutions, Chongzhou's home furnishing industry is undergoing a “digital rebirth.” Traditional advantageous industries are prone to path dependency, but Chongzhou has avoided this trap by proactively driving traditional industry upgrading through digital transformation, shifting from “selling products” to “selling scenarios” and “selling services,” achieving “speeding up while changing tires.”

In future industries, the aerospace industry, known as the “pearl on the industrial crown,” possesses strong technological spillover effects across high-temperature alloy materials, precision machining, control systems, and more industrial chain segments. The low-altitude economy is also an emerging strategic industry. Chongzhou's current layout precisely aligns with the industrial rhythm. Once completed, the Zhongfa Tianxin project will become a rare research, development, and production base for light aviation engines in Southwest China, filling regional gaps while seizing the value high ground of these strategic emerging industries.

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In the industrial interaction between Chengdu's “core” and surrounding regions, how can counties and cities find their own positioning? How can they avoid siphoning effects and achieve coordinated development? During the transition period when traditional industry advantages weaken and new tracks have not yet gained momentum, how can they achieve a smooth transition and strategic breakthrough?

With these questions in mind, observing Chongzhou's exploration within a broader coordinate system reveals its valuable sample significance.

In terms of what to do, Chongzhou has not pursued a “comprehensive” full industrial chain layout but has fully combined its own realities, anchored a higher strategic pattern, and positioned itself as an “important carrier of the trillion-yuan electronic information industry cluster in the Chengdu-Chongqing dual-city economic circle,” a “demonstration zone for green transformation of Sichuan-style home furnishing,” and a “collaborative development ground for Chengdu's aviation (low-altitude) equipment advanced manufacturing cluster.” It deeply integrates into Chengdu's and even the Chengdu-Chongqing dual-city economic belt's overall industrial layout, ultimately constructing its own differentiated industrial competitive advantages.

In terms of how to do it, Chongzhou has excelled by reconstructing the industrial ecosystem with an industrial chain mindset, reshaping growth logic with intensive concepts, and stimulating transformation momentum with scientific and technological innovation variables.

First, leading enterprises drive, and SMEs follow, creating a chain reaction where “one terminal product drives an entire industrial chain.” Through supply chain conferences, opportunity list releases, and other methods, the chain is extended, supplemented, and strengthened, helping SMEs integrate into the supply chain systems of leading enterprises and achieving quality upgrades across the entire chain.

Second, a dual-drive approach of incremental recruitment and stock optimization. On the one hand, seizing opportunities in new tracks such as the low-altitude economy and clean energy, “rising stars” like Guoxing Aerospace and Zhongfa Tianxin are introduced; on the other hand, the digital transformation of traditional advantageous industries such as smart homes is promoted to enhance the competitiveness of existing enterprises. This approach avoids the risk of “hollowing out” during industrial transformation by both capturing increments and optimizing stocks.

Third, systematic efforts in hard environment construction and soft service enhancement. Competition in the industrial ecosystem ultimately comes down to competition in the comprehensive environment. While solidifying energy infrastructure and building 15-minute living circles, Chongzhou has introduced reform measures such as “special teams + specialists” close service and “start construction upon land delivery, pre-acceptance for trial production,” constructing a business environment of “responding to needs whenever they arise and not disturbing when there are none” and providing a capital support system covering the entire lifecycle of enterprises, laying a solid ecological foundation for the growth and strengthening of the industrial chain.

These successful experiences provide highly valuable references for the industrial upgrading and transformation of China's county-level economy.

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Looking ahead to 2026, Chongzhou's industrial advancement clearly presents a “dual-stimulus” trend: on the one hand, climbing the scale peak of a “trillion-yuan economic development zone,” and on the other, charging toward the positional ascent of a “national top 100 county.”

These two goals are mutually reinforcing—without a trillion-yuan economic scale, the top 100 county status would be a castle in the air; without the comprehensive positional strength of a top 100 county, the trillion-yuan cluster would struggle to sustain its factor aggregation capabilities.

For Chongzhou, this is not just an expansion of industrial scale but a crucial qualitative transformation of the industrial ecosystem.

This qualitative transformation is reflected at three levels:

First, an identity reshaping from “passive support” to “active positioning.” Over the past two decades, Chongzhou has mostly played the role of a “supporter” undertaking Chengdu's industrial spillover. However, with the layout of “future industries” such as aerospace and commercial satellites, Chongzhou is shifting from passive embedding to active positioning, extending from the low end to the high end of the value chain.

Second, a functional leap from “manufacturing base” to “innovation hub.” Doubling R&D investment, establishing science and technology innovation funds, and landing major scientific and technological infrastructure all point to the same direction: Chongzhou is accelerating its transformation from a manufacturing base to an innovation source, proving that county-level enterprises can also form global competitiveness in hard technology fields.

Third, a competitive advantage reconstruction from “policy depression” to “ecological highland.” As traditional preferential policies such as land and taxation gradually converge, true competitiveness comes from the systemic advantages of the industrial ecosystem. Chongzhou's policies, including “special teams + specialists” close service, a business environment of “responding to needs whenever they arise and not disturbing when there are none,” and a capital system of “investing early, investing small, and investing in hard technology,” have jointly formed a complete industrial ecological support system. The accumulation of this “soft power” is the deep-seated driving force for the sustainable development of the county-level economy.

Of course, challenges remain severe. The intensification of regional competition, the iterative risks of industrial technology, and the bottleneck of high-end factor aggregation capabilities all await Chongzhou's responses.

However, Chongzhou's exploration already provides a valuable reference for the breakthrough of county-level new cities: against the backdrop of China's urbanization entering the era of metropolitan areas and increasingly fierce regional competition, the breakthrough path for county-level new cities does not lie in pursuing a “comprehensive” industrial system but in finding their own ecological niche in regional division of labor; not in simply undertaking industrial transfer but in forming irreplaceable competitiveness through continuous innovation; not in short-term rapid scale expansion but in constructing a sustainable, intensive, and high-quality industrial ecosystem.

"This year, we will focus on 'building and enhancing the park,' anchoring ourselves to major enterprises, closely monitoring large-scale industries, and solidifying their positions," stated Chen Maolu, the Secretary-General of the Chengdu Municipal Government and the Party Secretary of Chongzhou City. This declaration not only encapsulates Chongzhou's industrial transformation but also represents a steadfast commitment to its future. With the ambitious goal of achieving a total revenue exceeding 70 billion yuan for the '9+1' key industrial chains by 2026 and propelling the Chongzhou Economic Development Zone's revenue beyond the 90 billion yuan threshold, these figures underscore a county-level city's clear understanding and unwavering commitment to its chosen development path.

Reflecting on Chongzhou's industrial journey over the past two decades, it has evolved from an agricultural county to an industrial hub, transitioned from a singular industry focus to a diversified industrial landscape, shifted from scale expansion to intensive growth, and moved from factor-driven to innovation-driven development. Each of these leaps represents Chongzhou's strategic response to the opportunities presented by the times.

Today, Chongzhou finds itself at a new historical juncture, poised to undertake another pivotal leap. This leap is not only crucial for Chongzhou's future but will also serve as a blueprint for high-quality development in the transformation and upgrading of China's county-level economy.