On July 6, the Jinchang Featured Industries Investment Promotion Conference of the 32nd China Lanzhou Investment and Trade Fair was held in Jinchang. The China Nickel Capital (Jinchang) Industrial Chain Innovation and Development Index Report 2026 was released at the conference. The index is built around a four-dimensional framework covering industrial chain performance, industrial chain integration, industrial chain leadership and industrial chain innovation. It systematically quantifies and assesses Jinchang’s practices in innovative industrial chain development, comprehensively and objectively presenting the city’s tangible achievements in extending, complementing and strengthening industrial chains, as well as in industrial transformation and upgrading.
Figure: Index Release Event
The report shows that Jinchang’s Industrial Chain Innovation and Development Index reached 199.64 points in 2025, up 10.8% year on year. Since the base period was established, the index has doubled over five years, with a compound annual growth rate of 14.8%. The index’s sustained upward trajectory clearly records the solid strides made by this resource-based city in western China as it accelerates industrial transformation driven by innovation. Jinchang has continued to promote the high-end, green and intelligent upgrading of traditional industries and has steadily pursued a path of high-quality development for resource-based cities.
Figure: Results of the China Nickel Capital (Jinchang) Industrial Chain Innovation and Development Index
Industrial Chain Innovation Momentum Surges: From the Lower End of the Value Chain to the Forefront of the Innovation Chain
Jinchang owes its rise to nickel and is one of China’s major bases for nickel, cobalt and copper resources and new nonferrous metal materials. In the past, its endowment of nickel, cobalt and copper resources laid the foundation for the city’s development; today, technological innovation is becoming a new fulcrum for raising the value of Jinchang’s industries.
In 2025, Jinchang’s first-level index for industrial chain innovation stood at 219.16 points, up 27.5% year on year, significantly outpacing the overall index. Its 0.05-millimeter “hand-tearable nickel strip” broke an international monopoly; display photomasks achieved a technological breakthrough; its single-crystal cathode material technology entered the world’s leading ranks; and its pyrometallurgical production line for complex, refractory nickel feedstocks marked a world first. The application of a series of key technological achievements has enabled Jinchang to move beyond its role as a supplier of resources and raw materials and to continuously strengthen its voice and influence in high-end materials, critical processes and industrial technology breakthroughs.
Coordinated Chain Extension, Gap-Filling and Strengthening: Advancing from Resource-Based Industries to Full-Chain Integration
The difficulty in transforming resource-based cities lies in breaking path dependence on a single industrial structure and a low position in the value chain. In recent years, Jinchang has focused on extending, complementing and strengthening industrial chains, promoting the expansion of its competitive industries into deep processing, end-use applications and emerging fields.
The index shows that Jinchang’s first-level industrial chain integration index stood at 193.47 points in 2025, up 5.3% year on year. Jinchang has now formed a “2+4+N” modern industrial system supported by two leading industries—new nonferrous metal materials, and new energy and new-energy batteries—four pillar industries—the digital economy, the circular chemical industry, comprehensive resource utilization, and high-quality vegetables, forage crops and livestock—and “N” emerging fields, including modern services, future materials, future energy and future space.
Figure: Output Value of Jinchang’s “2+4+N” Modern Industrial System (Unit: RMB 100 million yuan)
From nickel, cobalt and copper resources to high-temperature alloys, battery materials and 3D-printing materials; from conventional smelting to fine chemicals and the comprehensive utilization of solid waste; and from a manufacturing base to digital-economy formats such as computing power centers and online freight platforms, Jinchang’s industrial landscape continues to diversify. Data show that the output value of Jinchang’s “2+4+N” modern industrial system reached RMB 258.6 billion in 2025, representing average annual growth of 33.2% since 2020. As industrial chains continue to lengthen, the value potential of resource-based industries is being further unlocked.
Industrial Chains Gain Scale: From Lead-Firm Leadership to “Flying-Geese” Development
Whether industrial chains can generate economies of scale depends primarily on the driving capacity of chain-leading enterprises and the level of upstream-downstream coordination. The report shows that Jinchang’s first-level industrial chain leadership index reached 251.99 points in 2025, the highest among the first-level indicators, up 15.1% year on year. Chain-leading enterprises represented by Jinchuan Group have played an important role in industrial support, technological collaboration, market expansion and business clustering.
In recent years, Jinchuan Group rose from 369th in the Fortune Global 500 in 2020 to 235th in 2025, driving the clustered development of more than 200 upstream and downstream supporting enterprises. The gross industrial output value of the Jinchang Economic and Technological Development Zone exceeded RMB 250 billion, 3.6 times the level at the end of the 13th Five-Year Plan period, while its ranking among national economic and technological development zones climbed 81 places in four years. Stronger coordination among leading enterprises, industrial parks and supporting companies has enabled Jinchang’s industrial development to progress from breakthroughs at individual points to interconnected industrial chains and clusters.
Deepening Industry-City Integration: Jinchang Makes a Striking Transformation from an Industrial Stronghold to “Five-City Integration”
While maintaining resilient industrial growth, Jinchang has advanced green transformation and urban quality in tandem. The Jinchang Economic and Technological Development Zone was included in the first batch of national zero-carbon parks to be developed, and energy consumption per unit of industrial value added fell to a record low. Jinchang was named a “National Civilized City” for the fourth consecutive time, while the income gap between urban and rural residents continued to narrow. The mutually reinforcing progress of industrial development, ecological improvement, urban-rural integration and urban governance means that the transformation of a resource-based city is no longer merely an adjustment of industrial structure, but a systemic upgrade of the city’s development model.
Jinchang’s innovative industrial chain development has now entered a new stage in which momentum accumulation, structural optimization and capacity upgrading are advancing in parallel. As a typical resource-based city in western China, Jinchang is using industrial chain innovation as a key lever to accelerate the integration of resource advantages, industrial foundations and innovation capabilities, providing an instructive example for resource-based cities seeking to foster new quality productive forces and pursue high-quality development.
(Huang Xin)
Media ContactCompany Name: China Economic Information ServiceContact Person: FENGMINEmail: Send EmailCity: BEIJINGCountry: ChinaWebsite: https://www.ceis.cn/list/gsjj/index.html
