Anhui Province's "second city" is accelerating its charge toward a trillion-yuan economic target.

Recently, Anhui held a press conference outlining Wuhu's development goals for the "15th Five-Year Plan" period: achieving a major breakthrough in building a modern provincial sub-center, further increasing its share of the province's total economy, further improving its ranking within the Yangtze River Delta, and further elevating its national ranking.

The city specifically set a goal for its automobile industry scale to surpass one trillion yuan.

In recent years, Wuhu's national economic ranking has been steadily climbing, emerging as a "dark horse" in both central China and the Yangtze River Delta. Its strongest card is its long-cultivated primary industry: automobiles.

Notably, as an ordinary prefecture-level city with an economy just over 540 billion yuan, Wuhu has repeatedly declared its ambition to build a trillion-yuan industry. This level of all-in determination is rare among similar cities nationwide.

The question is, does Wuhu have what it takes?

For example, Chongqing, known as "China's No. 1 Auto City," produced 2.788 million vehicles last year, firmly ranking first among Chinese cities. Based on this, it has set a goal for its industry scale to exceed one trillion yuan during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period. Meanwhile, other automotive heavyweights like Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Changchun are also targeting the trillion-yuan mark.

On this industrial track crowded with leading cities, what does Wuhu have to compete with them?

"With an average annual GDP growth rate of 6.8%, a per capita GDP of 142,300 yuan in 2025, and its national ranking among prefecture-level cities rising from 57th to 55th; total imports and exports growing 2.3 times compared to the end of the '13th Five-Year Plan' period, with an average annual growth of 26.8%..."

On July 22, Wuhu Mayor Xu Zhi presented the city's development achievements over the past five years at a themed press conference in Anhui Province, "Embarking on the '15th Five-Year Plan', Striving to Catch Up."

Looking back at recent years, this "second city" of Anhui, which once boldly declared that "a city dominating alone is not spring," has been broadening its development horizon, from "learning from Hefei, catching up with Hefei" to "benchmarking against Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai, catching up with top performers."

The driving force largely comes from its accelerating "primary industry."

In the first half of this year, China exported 5.096 million vehicles. Anhui Province alone exported 1.006 million vehicles, reaching the one-million mark five months earlier than last year, ranking first nationally in both export volume and value. Within this, Wuhu served as a powerful engine.

The press conference revealed that in the first half of the year, Wuhu exported 763,000 vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 118.3%, leading the nation in growth rate. In other words, Wuhu single-handedly contributed 76% of the vehicle exports from China's top exporting province, and this figure is still surging.

Looking further back, in 2025, Anhui's vehicle production reached 3.6865 million units, surpassing Guangdong to claim the top national spot. Wuhu's production accounted for 1.801 million units, nearly half of the province's total. Over a longer timeline, Wuhu's vehicle production jumped from 520,000 units in 2020 to over 1.8 million units, while the industry's scale rapidly expanded from under 120 billion yuan to over 600 billion yuan.

What does this mean?

Public data shows that in 2020, Guangzhou ranked first nationally with 2.95 million vehicles produced. Changchun produced 2.654 million vehicles, and Shanghai produced 2.6468 million vehicles, all in the top tier. Just five years later, Wuhu, a "small unknown" that never appeared on the leaderboard, has left established auto cities like Shanghai and Changchun behind, and its national ranking is closing in on Guangzhou.

Especially against the backdrop of accelerating differentiation in the industry landscape, Wuhu, driven strongly by its leading enterprise Chery, has consistently posted impressive growth rates for years, making it a more potential "dark horse" on the national automotive industry map. Data indicates that from 2021 to 2024, Wuhu's vehicle production grew year-on-year by 56.2%, 36.5%, 10.7%, and 35.9%, respectively.

In 2025, Wuhu's vehicle production increased by 10.2% year-on-year, a leading growth rate among cities with production exceeding one million vehicles. During the same period, Guangzhou's vehicle production fell by 5.1%, while Hefei, Shanghai, and Xi'an saw declines of 2.9%, 3.6%, and 2.1%, respectively.

The "gold content" of the primary industry is still rising, which forms Wuhu's greatest confidence in pursuing the trillion-yuan industry target.

Even so, achieving the trillion-yuan goal remains highly challenging.

Reviewing public information, as early as 2023, Wuhu issued an "Action Plan for Focusing on the Primary Industry to Build an Internationally Competitive New Energy Vehicle Industry Cluster," which specified: by 2025, strive for vehicle production to reach 3 million units and the industry scale to exceed 600 billion yuan; by 2027, strive for vehicle production to reach 5 million units and the industry scale to exceed one trillion yuan.

Comparing this with the city's "mid-term" report card: in 2025, the automotive industry's revenue exceeded 680 billion yuan, but the actual vehicle production fell significantly short of the earlier 3-million-unit target.

One signal is that in this year's Wuhu government work report, the timeline for striving to "achieve a breakthrough in the automobile industry scale exceeding one trillion yuan" has been adjusted to the end of the "15th Five-Year Plan" period. At the recent press conference, this goal was also included as one of the city's "15th Five-Year Plan" development objectives.

Some analysts point out that as the automobile manufacturing sector enters a phase of stock competition and national growth slows overall, market competition will continue to intensify. Neither established traditional hubs nor latecomer "players" can remain unaffected. The "competitors" Wuhu faces on this track are almost all first-tier cities or provincial capitals with comprehensive strength far exceeding its own.

Data shows that in 2025, Chongqing produced 2.788 million vehicles, a 9.7% increase, ranking first among cities nationwide. This included 1.296 million new energy vehicles, a 36% increase. Its vehicle and NEV production were 1.5 times and 3.2 times that of Wuhu, respectively, and its industrial cluster scale exceeded 800 billion yuan. Building on this, Chongqing's "15th Five-Year Plan" outline sets the goal of "industry scale exceeding one trillion yuan."

Furthermore, automotive hubs like Guangzhou, Changchun, and Shenzhen have all targeted the trillion-yuan automotive industry. For instance, Guangzhou, which alongside Chongqing is in the top tier of national vehicle production, explicitly states in its "15th Five-Year Plan" outline the goal to "build a trillion-yuan automotive industry cluster."

Wuhu cannot afford to lack a sense of crisis. A telling detail: since March, top leaders from six provinces, including Hunan, Anhui, and Henan, have held intensive meetings with BYD Chairman and President Wang Chuanfu, which has drawn attention. Many may not know that over a month before the Anhui Provincial Party Secretary and Governor met Wang Chuanfu in early April, Wuhu Party Secretary Ning Bo had already visited the BYD Group for "door-knocking investment promotion" and held a working meeting with Wang Chuanfu.

During the meeting, Ning Bo stated that BYD and Wuhu's primary automotive industry are highly compatible and complementary, with deep cooperative ties. He expressed hope that BYD would further leverage its leading role, attract more ecological partners to integrate into Wuhu's automotive industry chain, and strive for win-win cooperation.

Wang Chuanfu responded that BYD would actively promote business layout and project construction, accelerate technological innovation to empower the automotive industry, and contribute to Wuhu's high-quality development.

This reveals a critical "weakness" that Wuhu urgently needs to address.

When asked about the shortcomings of Wuhu's automotive industry, Ning Bo previously stated in an interview that, facing the wave of "new four modernizations" transformation and benchmarking against domestic and international auto cities, Wuhu's automotive industry still has significant room for improvement in areas like key component supply and ecosystem construction.

Behind the all-out effort to build a trillion-yuan primary industry lies the high expectation of strengthening Wuhu's role as a provincial sub-center.

For a long time, the lack of a large city was considered a "development pain point" for Anhui. According to local media reports, a key provincial meeting once pointed out that apart from Hefei, which is in the trillion-yuan economic bracket, there is a "gap" of cities with a GDP scale between 500 billion and 1 trillion yuan.

In 2021, Anhui's "14th Five-Year Plan" outline proposed "supporting Wuhu in building a provincial sub-center city." In March 2023, the Anhui Provincial Government Office formally issued "Several Opinions on Supporting Wuhu to Accelerate the Construction of a Provincial Sub-Center City," which specified that by 2027, Wuhu's GDP should strive to reach 800 billion yuan and enter the top 20 in the Yangtze River Delta. Wuhu thus began its sprint to become "Anhui's second economic growth pole."

Currently, Wuhu's GDP has grown from 474.107 billion yuan in 2023 to 540.269 billion yuan in 2025, with an average annual economic increase of 33 billion yuan. Its total economic output ranks 21st in the Yangtze River Delta, unchanged from 2023. To achieve the aforementioned GDP target, Wuhu would need an average annual economic increase of up to 130 billion yuan over the next two years.

At this press conference, Wuhu further clarified its "15th Five-Year Plan" development goals:

"1 Major Breakthrough": A major breakthrough in building a modern provincial sub-center, focusing on "three further improvements": further increasing the share of the province's total economy, further improving its ranking in the Yangtze River Delta, and further elevating its national ranking.

"6 New Leaps": New leaps in the construction of "Six Cities": City of Innovation, City of Automobiles, City of Intelligent Computing, City of Hubs, City of Joy, and City of Happiness.

Among these, the trillion-yuan industry goal centered on the "City of Automobiles" is the key support. Regarding specific pathways, the city has clarified that it will drive its primary automotive industry towards innovation and strength, leveraging strength to foster growth. The focus will be on the "complete vehicle – parts – aftermarket" trinity for extending and strengthening the chain, and on building a "people, vehicle, home" full-scenario ecological value chain.

Worth noting is that Hefei and Wuhu, the "dual cores" of Anhui's automotive industry, were both selected in the recent list of 40 pilot cities for automobile circulation and consumption reform announced by 8 departments including the Ministry of Commerce. In this national reform pilot, Hefei will focus on exploring new models for integrated vehicle production and sales management services, while Wuhu will concentrate on the green transformation of automobile consumption and the used car trade.

Nationally, the auto market is bidding farewell to a growth phase dominated by new vehicle sales, and the trillion-yuan aftermarket is entering a period of rapid growth.

In recent years, as one of the first batch of open riverine cities and Anhui's only water and aviation dual-open "seaport," Wuhu's advantages in automobile exports have continued to expand. Data shows that in 2025, Wuhu exported 1.351 million vehicles, a 17.3% increase, accounting for 82% of Anhui Province's total and 19% of the national total. This means that for every five vehicles exported from China, one is made in Wuhu. The export value of complete vehicles and parts exceeded 110 billion yuan.

Riding the wave of automobile exports, Wuhu's total imports and exports in 2025 surpassed 190 billion yuan, a 32.4% increase. The total volume jumped to first place among non-provincial capital cities in central China, and its growth rate ranked first among major foreign trade cities nationwide.

Currently, how to further leverage its advantages to benefit from the national pilot program presents a new challenge for Wuhu.