Insisting on high-quality development in recent years, Meihekou city in Jilin province has comprehensively promoted industrial transformation and accelerated the cultivation of new productive forces, forming a modern industrial system supported by pharmaceuticals, food processing, commerce and logistics, and tourism.

Meihekou is a county-level city directly administered by the provincial government. In September 2013, it was chosen as a pilot area to explore the expansion of power among such counties.

In January 2020, the province decided to build a demonstration zone, the Meihe New Area, for high-quality development and to create a modern regional central city.

In June 2021, the Meihe New Area was approved by the provincial government and officially established in September 2021.

In line with the spirit of the third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the fifth plenary session of the 12th CPC Jilin Provincial Committee, the Meihe New Area takes investment attraction and project construction as breakthrough points, and fully focuses on strengthening, optimizing and enhancing the real economy, according to Zhu Huan, Party secretary of Working Committee of the Meihe New Area and Party secretary of Meihekou city.

"We are also steadfast in transforming the work style, stabilizing growth, promoting reform, adjusting structure, improving the environment, benefiting the people and striving to compose a chapter of modernization with Chinese characteristics in Meihe," he said.

In the pharmaceutical industry, a cluster of industries centered around chemical drugs, biological drugs and traditional Chinese medicine has been formed.

Jilin Sihuan Pharmaceutical Co, with an investment of nearly 10 billion yuan (1.37 billion), has expanded its production center to Meihe.

Jilin Huisheng Biological Pharmaceutical Co spent 12 years developing Ganagliflozin Proline, the only innovative diabetes drug of its kind approved in Jilin in the past five years.

Furthermore, well-known pharmaceutical companies such as Buchang and Tianheng have also set up production facilities in Meihe, introducing a number of new varieties with great market potential.

In the food industry, the city has developed four key sectors: nuts, rice, alcohol and convenience foods.

"In the 1970s, local residents began to develop business channels for pine nut products," said Zhu." Meihekou has now become the world's largest pine nut processing center and distribution hub in Northeast Asia, accounting for 70 percent of the national processing volume and exporting to more than 30 countries and regions such as the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan."

"Located in the central part of the world's golden rice belt, the city integrated high-quality rice resource and created the regional public brand Meihe Rice," he said. "Meihe Rice ranks among the top 100 geographical rice brands in the world."

He also mentioned that the city has established the largest edible alcohol production base in Asia, with the capacity to produce 520,000 metric tons of alcohol annually, as well as the largest craft beer production base in Northeast China.

The city has promoted the development of convenience foods such as cold noodles, rice noodles and spicy hot pot catering to Northeastern tastes.

The total sales of the convenience food industry last year exceeded 1.3 billion yuan.

Facing the weakening of its geographical advantage and the rise of the e-commerce industry, which have seriously impacted its commerce and logistics industry, Meihekou has actively responded and sought changes.

"We have built several commercial facilities such as the Red Star Macalline Commercial Complex, the Eurasia Shopping Center and seafood markets to boost physical consumption," he said.

"Taking advantage of cooperation agreements between Jilin and Zhejiang provinces, we have built an e-commerce industrial park to drive e-commerce development, achieving a network transaction volume of 69.7 billion yuan in the first 10 months, with a year-on-year increase of 11.8 percent.

"At the same time, we have constructed the Transfar highway port project to comprehensively enhance logistics capabilities and the Agricultural Product Cold Chain Logistics Park project to create a distribution center for agricultural products in Northeast China," he added.

The cultural and tourism industry is the one that best reflects the innovative spirit of Meihekou, according to Zhu.

"Despite lacking inherent tourism resources, we have created well-known attractions such as Hailong Lake, Northeast Nightless City and Zhibei Village," he said. "We have established festival brands such as the Beer Festival and Water Splashing Festival, and the city has become a well-known tourist destination in Northeast China.

"Currently, we are actively exploring revolutionary resources such as the site of the Northeast Bureau of the CPC Central Committee's meeting in Meihekou and Meihekou Railway Station, focusing on building it into a revolutionary tourism city," he said.