Over a 71-year period since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, Ordos has established a complete modern industrial and economic development system led by its energy driven economy -- turning itself from the most impoverished area in Inner Mongolia into the leader of industrial development in the autonomous region.

In the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the industrial added value of Ordos was less than 1 million yuan ($142,690). In the 30 years before the reform and opening-up, the annual industrial added value of Ordos stagnated at 30 million yuan, ranking it ninth among 12 cities and leagues in Inner Mongolia.

In the wake of the reform and opening-up, Ordos seized the opportunity presented by the national resource transformation strategy. It started its industrial economic development from woolen spinning and energy.

Rapid development of coal industry

In 2004, the city's annual coal output exceeded 100 million tons, making it the country's largest coal-producing prefecture-level city. In addition, the added value of industries above designated size exceeded 10 billion yuan. Its coal output value topped 60 billion yuan in 2008, ranking it first in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region.

In 2018, the total added value of Ordos’ coal industry reached 172.23 billion yuan.

Over the past 71 years, the added value of coal industry has increased by about 4,420 times.

Surging industrial products

Over the past 71 years, the city's industrial production capacity has grown rapidly, and the output of major industrial products has been extremely rich, with the number of product types increasing to more than 60.

Raw coal, steel, building materials, chemical and other energy raw materials industries have developed a huge production capacity.

In 2018, the output of raw coal was 620 million metric tons, a 9,090-fold increase over the initial period during the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

In 2018, Ordos' power generation reached 103.4 billion kilowatt-hours, an increase of 3.03 million times over the same period, while cement output was 3.95 million tons, an increase of 150,000 times and its ferroalloy output reached 1.38 million tons.

The coal chemicals industry in Ordos has also experienced rapid development.

In 2018, the output of coal-to-olefins was 1.27 million tons, coal-to-methanol was 6.85 million tons and coal-to-urea came in at 2.34 million tons. Nowadays, the output of Ordos’ major energy products and energy-derived products accounts for nearly 70 percent of that of Inner Mongolia.

Ordos’ high-tech equipment industry has also developed rapidly, with an output of 100,000 vehicles, 56,000 engines and 64.76 million optoelectronic devices in 2018. The increase in industrial capacity has provided strong support for the economic development of the city, as well as for the entire autonomous region.

Enterprise scale, profit improvement

By 2018, the number of industrial enterprises above designated size in the city had grown to 402, with assets totaling 996.51 billion yuan, ranking it first in the autonomous region and accounting for 32.5 percent of the total in Inner Mongolia.

Among them, there are 17 companies with total assets exceeding 10 billion yuan and four enterprises with total assets worth over 50 billion yuan.

In 2018, the city's manufacturers above a designated size – firms with annual sales of 20 million yuan or more ($2.85 million) -- had total operating income of 373.64 billion yuan, accounting for 26.1 percent of those in the autonomous region.

These achieved total profits of 70.61 billion yuan, accounting for 50.1 percent of those in the autonomous region.