MOFCOM Releases 2025 Assessment of National Development Zones; Five Removed
MOFCOM released the 2025 assessment results for 228 national economic and technological development zones, covering their 2024 performance. Five zones—Jiedong, Puyang, Hulunbuir, Yingkou, and Daqing—were removed from the national list. In 2024, the zones generated RMB 15.4 trillion in GDP, accounting for 11.4% of the national total. Their tax revenue share reached 25.8%, and listed companies grew 5.3% year on year. The zones accounted for 24.1% of national imports and exports, 23.8% of high-tech product trade, and 23.1% of actual foreign investment.
On July 30, the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) released the 2025 comprehensive development level assessment results for national economic and technological development zones, evaluating the 2024 comprehensive development level of 228 such zones. In accordance with the provisions of the Measures for the Dynamic Management of National Economic and Technological Development Zones, the zones that ranked at the bottom—Jiedong in Guangdong, Puyang in Henan, Hulunbuir in Inner Mongolia, Yingkou in Liaoning, and Daqing in Heilongjiang—were removed from the national list.
The results show that in 2024, the 228 zones achieved a gross domestic product (GDP) of RMB 15.4 trillion, accounting for 11.4% of the national GDP. Their tax revenue accounted for 25.8% of the tax revenue of the cities where they are located, up 1.1 percentage points from the previous year. As of the end of 2024, the zones were home to 1,096 listed companies, a year-on-year increase of 5.3%.
In terms of opening-up and driving force, in 2024 the zones achieved a total import and export volume of RMB 10.6 trillion, accounting for 24.1% of the national total. The import and export of high-tech products reached RMB 2.8 trillion, representing 23.8% of the national high-tech product trade. Actual utilized foreign investment amounted to US$268.4 billion, accounting for 23.1% of the national total. The zones host more than 110,000 foreign trade enterprises and more than 70,000 foreign-invested enterprises.
The exit mechanism for national development zones was established in 2016. That year, MOFCOM issued the Measures for the Comprehensive Development Level Assessment of National Economic and Technological Development Zones, and began conducting unified annual assessments. According to the measures, zones that rank in the bottom five in two consecutive assessments are removed from the national list after approval by the State Council. In early 2020, the Jiuquan zone in Gansu was removed after ranking in the bottom five for two consecutive years, becoming the first zone to be removed since the establishment of national development zones in 1984. A year later, the Shizuishan zone in Ningxia was also removed for the same reason. The Suihua zone in Heilongjiang, which was upgraded to a national development zone at the end of 2012, is no longer on the list published by MOFCOM.
In 2021, the revised assessment measures introduced separate rankings for the eastern, central, and western regions, and increased the frequency of removals.
MOFCOM said it will optimize the assessment indicator system for national development zones, improve the dynamic management system, continuously stimulate innovation vitality and internal driving forces, and promote the standardized upgrading and high-quality development of the zones.