Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, China

🇨🇳 Harbin is a sub-provincial city and the provincial capital of Heilongjiang province, People's Republic of China, as well as largest metropolitan city in Northeast China. Harbin has direct jurisdiction over nine metropolitan districts, two county-level cities and seven counties. Harbin serves as a key political, economic, scientific, cultural and communications hub in Northeast China, as well as an important industrial base of the nation. Harbin is also one of the top 200 science cities and metropolitan areas in the world by scientific research output as tracked by the Nature Index. The city is the seat of several major universities in the Project 211, including Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin Engineering University, Northeast Agricultural University and Northeast Forestry University.

Economy Harbin has the largest economy in Heilongjiang province. In 2013, Harbin's GDP totaled RMB501.08 billion, an increase of 8.9 percent over the previous year. The proportion of the three industries to the aggregate of GDP was 11.1:36.1:52.8 in 2012. The total value for imports and exports by the end of 2012 was US$5,330 million. In 2012, the working population reached 3.147 million. In 2015, Harbin had a GDP of RMB 575.12 billion.

The chernozem soil in Harbin, called "black earth" is one of the most nutrient rich in all of China, making it valuable for cultivating food and textile-related crops. As a result, Harbin is China's base for the production of commodity grain and an ideal location for setting up agricultural businesses.

Harbin also has industries such as light industry, textile, medicine, food, aircraft, automobile, metallurgy, electronics, building materials, and chemicals which help to form a fairly comprehensive industrial system. Several major corporations are based in the city. Harbin Electric Company Limited, Harbin Aircraft Industry Group and Northeast Light Alloy Processing Factory are some of key enterprises. Power manufacturing is a main industry in Harbin; hydro and thermal power equipment manufactured here makes up one-third of the total installed capacity in China. According to Platts, in 2009-10 Harbin Electric was the second largest manufacturer of steam turbines by worldwide market share, tying Dongfang Electric and slightly behind Shanghai Electric. Harbin Pharmaceutical Group, which mainly focus on research, development, manufacture and sale of medical products, is China's second-biggest pharmaceutical company by market value.

Harbin International Trade and Economic Fair has been held annually since 1990. This investment and trade fair cumulatively attracting more than 1.9 million exhibitors and visitors from more than 80 countries and regions to attend, resulting over US$100 billion contract volume concluded according to the statistics of 2013. Harbin is among major destinations of FDI in Northeast China, with utilized FDI totaling US$980 million in 2013. After the 18th regular meeting between Sino-Russian Prime Ministers between Li Keqiang and Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev in October 2013, two sides come to make an agreement that the Harbin International Trade and Economic Fair will be renamed "China-Russia EXPO" and be co-sponsored by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, Heilongjiang Provincial government, the Russian Ministry of Economic Development and Russia's Ministry of Trade and Industry.

In the financial sector, Longjiang Bank and Harbin Bank are some of the largest banks in Northeast China, with headquarters in Harbin. The latter ranks 4th by competitiveness among Chinese city commercial banks in 2011.

In commerce, there is Qiulin Group, which owns Harbin's largest department store.

Economic development zones and ports • Harbin Economic & Technology Development Zone (National), mainly focus on telecommunications equipment, chemicals production and processing, automobile production/assembly, electronics, textiles, medical equipment and supplies. • Harbin High and New Technological Development Zone, focus on optical-mechanical-electrical integration, biology, medicine, electronics and information technology. • Harbin Pingfang Automobile Industrial Zone (Provincial), mainly focus on automobile production/assembly, electronics assembly & manufacturing, heavy industry, instruments & industrial equipment production. • Harbin Limin Economic Development Zone (Provincial), mainly focus on trading and distribution, food/beverage processing, medical equipment and supplies, shipping/warehousing/logistics. • Harbin Port

Harbin Songbei Economic Development Zone Songbei Economic Development Zone is located in Songbei District of Harbin. The zone has a planned area of 5.53 square kilometers. Electronics assembly & manufacturing, food and beverage processing are the encouraged industries in the zone. Many regional and provincial headquarters of large enterprises such as the China Datang Corporation, China Netcom and China Telecom have joined in this district, preliminary constituting the economy concentration zone of the local headquarters. Regional Scientific research centres including Harbin Science and Technology Innovation Center and Harbin International Agricultural Science and Technology Innovation Center are also located in this development zone. Profit from these major research institutes, Harbin ranked 9th among 50 major Chinese cities in scientific and technological innovation ability in scientific and technological competitiveness ranking in 2006, as well as ranking 6th among Chinese cities in the amount of scientific and technological achievements.

Harbin Economic and Technological Development Zone

Harbin Economic and Technological Development Zone (HETDZ) is one of the 90 national economical development zones of China. It was set up in June 1991, and was approved by the State Council as a national development zone in April 1993. In December 2012, Harbin High Technology Development Zone was merged into HETDZ. In 2009, the hi-tech zone was separated from HETDZ again. The area now has a total area of 18.5 square-kilometers in the centralized parks, subdivided into Nangang and Haping Road Centralized Parks. The 12.2 square-kilometers Yingbin Road Hi-tech Centralized Park, which was formerly part of HETDZ, is currently under the administration of Harbin High and New Technology Industry Development Zone since 2009. • Nangang Centralized Park: Designated for the incubation of high-tech projects and research and development base of enterprises as well as tertiary industries such as finance, insurance, services, catering, tourism, culture, recreation and entertainment, where the headquarters of large famous companies and their branches in Harbin are located. • Yingbin Road Centralized Park: mainly focus on high-tech incubation projects, high-tech industrial development. • Haping Road Centralized Park: Designated for a comprehensive industrial basis for the investment projects of automobile and automobile parts manufacturing, medicines, foodstuffs, electronics, textile; Automobile production and assembly raw material processing are the encouraged industries in this region.

Harbin High and New Technology Industry Development Zone Harbin High and New Technology Industry Development Zone is one of the 56 national High and New Technology Industry Development Zones of China. The zone was first set up as a provincial level development zone in 1988, and was approved by the State Council as a national development zone in 1991 respectively. It has 23.9 square-kilometers of built-area totally, and subdivided into two parts: Science and Technology Innovation Town and High-tech Industrial Development Zone.