An Overview of Panzhihua City

updated on：2019-04-29

　　Panzhihua City lies at the junction between southwestern Sichuan and northwestern Yunnan. As the only city named after a flower, it enjoys a reputation of “the city is a flower and the flower is a city”. Panzhihua covers an area of 7,440 km2. Under the administration of Panzhihua Municipality are 3 districts and 2 counties, namely, East District, West District, Renhe District, Miyi County, and Yanbian County. It has a population of 1.23 million consisting of 42 ethnic groups. In 2018, the city's regional GDP was 117.352 billion yuan, with year-on-year growth of 7.5%; local general public budget revenue was 6.15 billion yuan, with year-on-year growth of 7%; fixed assets investment the whole society was 63.21 billion yuan, with year-on-year growth of 8.1%; social consumer goods retail sales totaled 36.126 billion yuan, with year-on-year growth of 10.8%; the per capita disposable income of urban and rural residents reached 38,510 yuan and 16,708 yuan, respectively, with year-on-year growth of 8.1% and 8.9%, respectively.

　　A heroic city——seven households under a tree. Panzhihua is a city established according to the need of the Third Front Movement of China. Before the development and construction, it was a barren land, and there are only "seven households under a tree". In 1960s, in the face of the severe and complicated international and domestic situation, the Party Central Committee and the State Council implemented the vigorous Third Front Movement for the strategic consideration of adjusting the national industrial layout and consolidating the defense of rear area, and gave top priority to the construction of Panzhihua in the Movement. In February 1965, the Panzhihua Special Economic Zone was officially established as the first resource development zone in New China. Chairman Mao Zedong named it after Panzhihua, a kind of tree, and gave instructions on its construction that constructing Panzhihua or not was not an issue about a steel plant, but an issue of strategy. Deng Xiaoping visited Panzhihua for several times and praised it, ‘it is richly endowed by nature’. Later, due to the need for war preparation, its name was changed to ‘Dukou City’. In January 1987, the city of Dukou was officially renamed Panzhihua City. In the early days of its construction, responding to the calls at the time such as ‘Choose the best people and best horses for the Third Front’, hundreds of thousands of construction workers from all over the country, including Wuhan, Liaoning, Shanghai, Tianjin, Chongqing, Chengdu, etc., flocked to Panzhihua for the construction of the Third Front. As a result, Pangang, the first integrated large-sized iron and steel enterprise in west China was built on an area of 2.5 square kilometers, which was praised as a miracle. It has overcome the worldwide problem of smelting vanadium-bearing titaniferous magnetite in ordinary blast furnaces, profoundly affecting and changing China's industrial and economic landscape, and generating the ‘Third Front Spirit’ of ‘hard work, selfless dedication, unity and cooperation, and bold innovation’. Panzhihua is a successful model and glorious epitome of the Third Front Movement, and it is a heroic city in the southwest China.

　　The Capital of Vanadium and Titanium – 100-meter rails boost high speed. ‘Panzhihua gains the name for its strong industry’. Panzhihua is a newly-developed industrial city built by the mine and prospered by steel. It is rich in mineral resources. 76 kinds of minerals, among which vanadium-bearing titaniferous magnetite is especially enriched, have been found. Its titanium and vanadium reserves rank first and third in the world. The production capacity and output of vanadium products and titanium concentrates ranks first in the country, and it can produce titanium materials, titanium tube, titanium wire and titanium powder. Relying on vanadium-bearing titaniferous magnetite, after decades of exploration and development, Pangang has become the world's largest vanadium-producing enterprise, China's largest titanium raw material supplier and a titanium processing enterprise with the most complete industrial chain, China's important production base of automotive steel, home appliance steel, and military steel, and China’s most important and the world's top–level rail production base. In particular, the vanadium-bearing 100-meter rail produced in Panzhihua, the only top-level rail in China to be granted the certificate of ‘National Inspection-free Export Product’, is helping China's high-speed train to run with world-class speed. Due to its vanadium content, wear resistance and corrosion resistance, it is widely used in and high-altitude and cold areas such as Beijing-Tianjin high-speed railway and Qinghai-Tibet Railway. It is exported to more than 30 countries and regions around the world. Pangang, on behalf of China, sets the international standard for rail.

　　Health & Wellness Resort - it is pleasant to live as a sunshining health & wellness resort. It has a south subtropical dry hot valley climate and its altitude, temperature and humidity is very favorable for human recuperation. It has sunshine duration of about 2700 hours and a frost-free period of over 300 days a year. Its annual average temperature is 20.3 °C, which means it is warm in winter and cool in summer. It has a forest coverage rate of 60.03% and clean air, with PM2.5 lower than 32 micrograms / cubic meter throughout the year. All the merits make it an ideal resort for escaping cold in winter and prevent heat in summer. As the only subtropical fruit industrial zone in Sichuan, Panzhihua is one of the national demonstration zones for modern agriculture, the national advantage areas of featured agricultural products in the first group, the national demonstration sites for stereoscopic agriculture and the bases of South-North Vegetable Transfer Project. It abounds in high quality fruits such as mango, loquat, pomegranate wax apple, lotus, strawberry and cherry, among which mango is worth a particular recommendation. Growing in the northernmost latitude and the highest elevation, Panzhihua mango is the latest to appear on market. Due to its excellent quality, it sells well at home and abroad. In recent years, Panzhihua has vigorously developed the ‘health & wellness+’ industry featuring overall arrangement, full-time service, and various age groups of customers. It has taken the lead in publishing local standards of the health & wellness+ industry and established the first health & wellness college in China. It has been listed among China's Top 10 Cities for Respiratory Environment, China's Top 50 Cities for Health and Wellness, the first group of National Pilot Cities for the Integration of Health & Wellness and Medical Industry, National Smart Health & Wellness Demonstration Bases and China’s Sunshining Health & Wellness Demonstration Cities. Panzhihua is a famous immigrant city. 98% of the urban population is brought together from all over the country. It forms a warm and inclusive urban temperament, and welcomes guests and reaches the world with an open and confident attitude.

　　Panzhihua, a heroic city that once created a miracle, will create new miracles and create new heroes in a new era. At present, guided by the new ‘3+2’ orientations and requirements for Panzhihua put forward by the Sichuan Provincial Committee, the people of the city focus on in-depth implementation of the ‘1, 2, 3, 5’ overall work ideas, and make full use of the ‘two advantages’ of vanadium & titanium and sunshine. We also give full play to comparative advantage, promote high-quality development in an all-round manner, focus on building new growth points for Sichuan's economy, and speed up the construction of the central city in southwest Sichuan and northwest Yunnan and Sichuan’s open gateway to the south, striving to create a heroic Panzhihua and a sunshining health & wellness resort. The realization of the beautiful blueprint needs attention, guidance, and help from all the leaders, guests, friends, and people of insight. Please pay attention to Panzhihua, believe in Panzhihua, choose Panzhihua, and build Panzhihua together with us. Let us share the sunshine and glory here.