Special Feature on the 15th Five-Year Plan | Urban Renewal: A 3 Trillion Yuan Boom is Imminent, How to Do a Good Job in the Main Task of Urban Renewal?

01

Many cities aim to reach 3 trillion yuan in GDP during the 15th Five-Year Plan period.

On January 21, Shanghai released its economic performance figures for 2025: the city's GDP reached 5,670.871 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.4%. This makes Shanghai the first city in China to reach the "5 trillion yuan" level.

Meanwhile, according to the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Statistics, Beijing's GDP reached 5,207.34 billion yuan in 2025, a 5.4% increase compared to 2024, making it the second city in China to reach the "5 trillion yuan" level.

Currently, there is no city in China with a GDP of 4 trillion yuan.

The 3 trillion yuan tier includes: Shenzhen (3,680.187 billion yuan), Chongqing (3,219.315 billion yuan), and Guangzhou (3,103.25 billion yuan).

The 2 trillion yuan tier includes: Suzhou (2,672.698 billion yuan), Chengdu (2,351.134 billion yuan), Hangzhou (2,186.032 billion yuan), and Wuhan (2,110.623 billion yuan).

With the release of the 15th Five-Year Plans of several cities, a wave of expansion towards the goal of "3 trillion yuan GDP cities" is quietly brewing. Major economic cities such as Suzhou, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Wuhan, and Nanjing are accelerating their efforts, clearly defining their main economic tasks for the 15th Five-Year Plan period. Striving to reach 3 trillion yuan in GDP has become a significant indicator of a city's economic leap.

In early 2024, Suzhou proposed the "345" goal, aiming to push its GDP to the 3 trillion yuan mark within about three years.

Chengdu, Hangzhou, and Wuhan have set "reaching 3 trillion yuan" as one of their economic development goals during the 15th Five-Year Plan period.

02

How to advance the main task of urban renewal

As an important means to boost domestic demand and strengthen market entities, urban renewal not only directly drives investment, but also brings about comprehensive effects such as industrial revitalization, land value enhancement, and consumption upgrading, forming a "cash flow" for urban development and promoting a virtuous cycle. It has become one of the "main tasks" during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period.

In the past, urban development exhibited an extensive spatial expansion model, with the urban development radius expanding by an average of 15 kilometers per year (2002-2015). Cities continued to sprawl outward, encroaching on surrounding land. However, with the transformation of urban development concepts and the increasing scarcity of resources, this model has gradually become unsustainable.

Today, the urban development radius has been significantly reduced to 3 kilometers (after 2025), with greater emphasis placed on the three-dimensional renewal of the main urban area.

Taking Wuhan as an example, the Wuhan Municipal Government proposed to promote high-quality urban renewal with "five improvements and four enhancements" as the main focus, and to drive the transformation of economic development mode through the transformation of urban development mode.

Among them, the "five renovations" cover five aspects: renovation and utilization of existing buildings, renovation and upgrading of old residential areas, renovation and upgrading of old blocks, renovation and revitalization of old factory areas, and acceleration of urban village renovation.

Among the "Four Goods," "Good Houses" mainly focuses on improving the quality of living, "Good Communities" emphasizes the improvement of supporting functions, "Good Communities" emphasizes the optimization of governance and services, and "Good Urban Areas" pursue the leap in the comprehensive value of the region.

Guided by the principles of "five improvements and four enhancements," Wuhan has comprehensively empowered the optimization of urban structure, the improvement of functions, and the enhancement of quality. This has fully demonstrated the integrity and synergy of urban renewal work, and explored and formed the "Wuhan experience" of organic renewal in megacities.

Let's take the transformation of Beijing's Financial Street as another example. After the transformation, the GDP per square kilometer exceeded 100 billion yuan, achieving a significant increase in the output value per unit of land and becoming a new engine for urban economic development.

In the renovation of Nantou Ancient City in Shenzhen, the land value of the area jumped from 28,000 yuan/㎡ to 180,000 yuan/㎡, far exceeding the housing prices of 90% of third- and fourth-tier cities, making it a high ground for wealth accumulation.

Currently, Suzhou is also continuously promoting the improvement of the quality and efficiency of urban renewal. A total of 291 urban renewal projects have been implemented in the city, with a total investment of over 150 billion yuan; 16 projects have been selected as provincial-level urban renewal pilot projects, ranking first in the province.

03

In a competitive market with existing players, new quality productivity is key.

The core of competition in the existing market is the upgrading of productivity. Construction companies break through traditional development bottlenecks with new quality productivity, and evolve towards intelligent, green, and integrated development, driving the transformation of the construction industry from labor-intensive to technology-intensive, which becomes a key support for the competitiveness of enterprises.

Whether it's the growing demand for customized civil engineering for 5G base stations, data centers, and ultra-high voltage facilities, or the basic engineering for data center computer rooms and ultra-high voltage substations; or the "construction + rural revitalization" sector, where digital village construction is driving the implementation of smart agricultural greenhouses, rural cultural and tourism facilities, and creating bulk demand for human settlement environment improvement projects; or the "construction + new energy" sector, where, in addition to offshore photovoltaic and wind power foundation projects, the demand for civil engineering for energy storage power stations and hydrogen energy infrastructure is gradually being released, further expanding new energy cooperation scenarios; or the gradual replacement of traditional high-energy-consuming products with new materials such as low-carbon cement, recycled aggregates, and building-integrated photovoltaic components, with the construction of zero-carbon buildings and zero-carbon parks accelerating, and the demand for technology integration driving enterprises to transform from "construction contractors" to "low-carbon solution providers."

In short, the competition in future urban renewal will essentially be a competition of "new quality productivity" for enterprises. Companies with full-chain service capabilities will have a priority in seizing market share; companies with core technologies in niche areas will further expand the boundaries of market opportunities.

Today, Canlon is continuously empowering emerging industrial clusters to meet their diverse and systematic needs for building quality through its diversified and customized system solutions, including single-ply roofing systems, underground engineering, and photovoltaic roofing.

In 2025, Canlon assisted in the construction of multiple projects in the Hainan Free Trade Zone and the construction of a billion-yuan-level fiberglass production base in Zhejiang. It also provided system solutions for the first nuclear power unit of the "15th Five-Year Plan" and the world's first dual-reactor coupled nuclear energy project—the Jiangsu Xuwei Nuclear Heating and Power Plant—providing a vivid example for the construction of emerging urban industrial clusters. Investment in renovation services and the opening of terminal stores in multiple cities further outline a blueprint for high-quality development in the future competitive landscape of the existing market, injecting long-term momentum for the company to weather economic cycles.

Meanwhile, its subsidiary, Jiazhicai, has also made continuous breakthroughs in the field of new display testing and repair. The first domestically developed and manufactured OLED De-mura equipment applied to the 8.6-generation line was successfully delivered to BOE, realizing the domestic substitution of imported equipment in related fields and providing key technical support for ensuring the security and independent control of the industrial chain.

With more cities striving to achieve the 3 trillion yuan target, Canlon looks forward to creating more miracles in economic development during the 15th Five-Year Plan period.