Economic output of China's Yangtze River Economic Belt more than doubles over past decade

The economic output of China's Yangtze River Economic Belt has more than doubled over the past decade, said Wang Changlin, vice chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission at a press conference in Beijing on Monday.

The economic belt's share of the country's gross domestic product has risen from 42.2 percent to 47.3 percent in the past ten years. Additionally, per capita disposable income has increased from 23,000 yuan (about 3,288 U.S. dollars) to 44,000 yuan (about 6,291 U.S. dollars), an increase of 91 percent, Wang said.

Stretching over 6,300 kilometers before emptying into the East China Sea, the Yangtze River stands as China's longest waterway. The Yangtze River Economic Belt, comprising 11 provincial-level regions, has emerged as a pivotal economic powerhouse in the nation.

In recent years, China has steadily advanced the establishment of an international science and technology innovation center in Shanghai (Yangtze River Delta) and regional centers respectively in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei Province, and the Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Circle. The country has also made efforts in nurturing emerging and future industries, leading to significant technological achievements and spurring the rise of internationally competitive innovative enterprises, along with the development of world-class industrial clusters in sectors like automotive manufacturing and electronic information.

Wang also highlighted considerable progress in pollution control along the Yangtze River in the past decade. A total of 1,361 illegal docks have been removed, effectively eliminating black and odorous water bodies in cities along the river. The proportion of river sections with good water quality has increased dramatically from 67 percent to 96.5 percent, with surface water quality improving from partially Class V to consistently Class II. The ten-year fishing ban on the Yangtze River has been strictly enforced.

In terms of cargo throughput, the trunk line of the Yangtze River has remained the world's busiest inland waterway. Over the past decade, annual cargo throughput at ports along this route has surged by 71 percent, reaching 4.2 billion tons.

"Next, we will thoroughly implement the decisions and plans of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council. We will develop and execute the 15th Five-Year program for the Yangtze River Economic Belt and advance the three-year action plan for integrated protection of the Yangtze River, to ensure the continuous progress of the Yangtze River Economic Belt," Wang said.

Economic output of China's Yangtze River Economic Belt more than doubles over past decade

China registered smooth progress in carrying out space science research, application experiment and technology test projects aboard the country's space station in orbit, covering multiple fields such as life sciences, microgravity physics, and new space technologies and applications, according to the Technology and Engineering Center for Space Utilization (CSU), the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The latest official data released by the CSU indicate that in 2025, the number of new scientific research and application projects for the country's space application system increased by 31, with about 867.5 kilograms of scientific materials such as uplink experimental modules, units and samples taken to the space station, with 83.92 kilograms of space science experiment samples brought back to the Earth, and with over 150 terabytes of scientific data obtained.

These developments enabled scientific-technological research teams in various fields to realize a series of original, cutting-edge and innovative progress and achievements, said the CSU. In the field of space life sciences, China successfully conducted its first space science experiment on mice on the Space Station, laying an important foundation for future systematic research on the impact of the space environment on mammals.

The four mice involved in the experiment had been sent into space aboard the Shenzhou-21 crewed spaceship on Oct 31, 2025, and were housed in a specialized habitat on the space station before returning to the Earth on Nov 14.

An in-situ electrochemical and optical research project on lithium-ion batteries for space applications was also carried out on the Space Station.

The research is expected to further advance the fundamental theories of electrochemistry and provide a basis for optimizing current on-orbit battery systems and designing next-generation high-energy-density, high-safety space batteries. "In the future, China plans to launch two flagship astronomical facilities. One is the Chinese Survey Space Telescope (CSST), also known as the Xuntian Space Telescope. It's capable of making significant scientific discoveries in cosmology and from nearby galaxies and the Milky Way. The other is the HERD -- a high energy cosmic radiation detection facility, which is capable of detecting cosmic rays with extremely high sensitivity, to further understand dark matter, and the origin of cosmic ray acceleration and other related extreme cosmic phenomena. It is also capable of making new and more comprehensive insights into gamma-ray surveys," said Ba Jin, senior engineer of the CSU.

China registers smooth progress in space science research on space station in 2025