A digital factory owned by Noblelift Intelligent Equipment Co Ltd. [Photo/WeChat account: huzhoufabu]

Huzhou in East China's Zhejiang province has been ranked 29th on the 2021 list of top 100 advanced manufacturing cities in China, up 16 slots over the previous year.

The ranking was done by CCID Consulting, a firm affiliated with a think tank under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. The firm evaluated the advanced manufacturing sectors of 293 prefecture-level cities nationwide based on factors such as innovation capacity, integrated development, economic strength, and brand quality. 

Official statistics show that the added value of industrial enterprises above designated size from Huzhou topped 100 billion yuan ($15.38 billion) from January to October, representing a yearly uptick of 15.7 percent.

The proportion of R&D expenditure in the city's GDP increased from 2.39 percent in 2015 to 3.09 percent in 2020, ranking third in Zhejiang. 

Huzhou has also made strides in industrial digitalization and green manufacturing.

In the first 10 months of this year, the added value of the core sectors (manufacturing) of the city's digital economy hit 10 billion yuan, up 24.4 percent year-on-year.

Efforts have been made to facilitate the technical upgrading of local manufacturing companies so as to minimize the adverse impact on the environment.

To date, the city has built 44 green factories and four green industrial parks.