Administrative Division

Dangtu County is located between Nanjing, Ma’anshan and Wuhu urban agglomerations, with a total area of 1,002 square kilometers and a total population of 480,000. It has jurisdiction over eleven townships and has one provincial development zone. Dangtu County is rich in history. It has a history of over 2,200 years since Dangtu was established as a county. Li Bai, a great Chinese poet endowed with the title of the Immortal of Poetry, traveled here seven times and spent his remaining years here till death. Dangtu County has ecological civilization and is known as the most beautiful county in China. Besides being among the first batch of county-level civilized cities, Dangtu County is also a national ecological civilization construction demonstration county. With regard to the economy, Dangtu County performs brilliantly. The year 2019 has witnessed the county achieving a regional GDP of 44.53 billion yuan, which is an increase of 8.6% from the previous year, ranking the fifth in Anhui Province’s top ten counties. In 2019, fiscal revenue was 5.06 billion RMB yuan, which is an increase of 9.2% from 2018, and the growth rate ranked second among the top 10 counties throughout the whole province. In conclusion, Dangtu County is shortlisted in the top 100 counties in China in terms of the following five aspects—comprehensive strength, investment potential, technological innovation, green development, and the quality of new urbanization.

Location and Transportation

Dangtu County is the east gate of Anhui Province, a satellite city of Nanjing, and the bridgehead of Ma’anshan city’s integration into the Yangtze River Delta and the Nanjing Metropolitan Circle. In terms of transportation, besides the middle and the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, high-speed railways pass through the county as well as national and provincial arterial roads. There are three 10,000-ton foreign trade ports such as Zhengpu Port lying within a radius of 20 kilometers from the county seat. It is only a 40-minute drive to Nanjing Lukou International Airport and only 28 minutes to Nanjing and 2.5 hours to Shanghai by Ning’an High-speed Railway. The county’s location advantage will be more prominent and its city level will be significantly elevated after the speed-up construction of a number of high-speed railways and expressways such as Ningma Intercity Railway, Chaoma High-speed Railway, Ningma Expressway (the project of broadening the Ningma Expressway from bi-directional four lanes to bi-directional eight lanes).

Industry and Platform

In recent years, Dangtu County has made great efforts to attract as many big companies as possible to settle in from the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta. It has initially formed some industry clusters, such as smart home appliance cluster led by AUX air conditioners, biomedical cluster led by UK Reckitt Benckiser and smart logistics cluster led by SF Express. The first phase of the project, AUX Smart Home Appliance Industrial Park, with an investment of over 10 billion RMB yuan, has officially been put into operation and was approved as a provincial-level smart home appliance industry cluster. 

The planned area of the provincial-level Dangtu Economic Development Zone is 63 square kilometers, and the built-up area is 18.6 square kilometers. Now Dangtu County is trying to establish a national-level development zone. In the assessment and evaluation of the development zones above the provincial-level in Anhui Province, Dangtu Economic Development Zone is at the forefront. It has been rated as the most investment-worthy development zone in the Yangtze River Delta and awarded with the title as one of the ten best development zones owing good investment environment in Anhui Province. At present, Dangtu Economic Development Zone has over 800 enterprises, including more than 200 industrial enterprises above designated size, 24 listed companies and their subsidiaries, more than 20 provincial and national research and development institutions and 2 academician workstations.

Policies and Production Factors

In 2019, Dangtu County was successfully selected as one of the Business Environment Top 100 Counties by CCDI Consulting Company. The county formulated “100 Guidelines” to optimize the business environment. Enterprises are provided with full-process agency services and major projects are led and assisted by county leaders. The timescale of the entire process from the preliminary approval of a project to its completion and commissioning is two-thirds shorter than the legal time limit. Enterprise land, labor, logistics and other production factors are well-equipped with low cost for enterprises. The benchmark price of industrial land is 120,000 RMB yuan per mu. According to the tax per mu of enterprises and the characteristics of the industry, enterprises can enjoy some preferential policies such as fixed assets subsidy and operational rewards and support. The average cost of industrial use of water, gas, and electricity is 2.2 RMB yuan per cubic meter, 2.95 RMB yuan per cubic meter, and 0.63 RMB yuan per kilowatt-hour respectively. Living, education, health care, and shopping in Dangtu are all very convenient.