Yongjia Industrial Park in Yongjia county in Wenzhou. [Photo provided by the publicity department of Yongjia county]

Zhejiang province has officially removed Yongjia county, Cangnan county, and Jiangshan county-level city from its list of designated mountain and island counties.

The announcement came on May 28 at a provincial conference on high-quality development in mountainous and coastal areas. It marks the second adjustment since Zhejiang launched a dynamic classification system in 2023 to track regional progress. With the latest update, the number of designated mountain and island counties is reduced by three.

For more than 20 years, Zhejiang has implemented a "one policy per county" approach, designing bespoke support strategies for less-developed regions. This has included fiscal incentives, industrial planning and infrastructure upgrades, enabling many counties to overcome natural constraints and move onto faster development tracks.

Yongjia and Cangnan, in particular, now lead the former mountain and island group in economic size. In 2024, Yongjia's GDP reached 60.64 billion yuan ($8.39 billion), followed by Cangnan at 54.32 billion yuan. Jiangshan, with a GDP approaching 50 billion yuan, ranks third among its peer counties.

Yongjia has built a robust pump and valve manufacturing sector, with industrial added value from above-scale enterprises exceeding 10.99 billion yuan for the first time in 2024. The county has also promoted integrated rural tourism, helping mountain communities increase household income through farming, culture and travel.

Cangnan, situated on the coast, has made strides in renewable energy. It is home to Zhejiang's first offshore wind power base with an installed capacity of over 1 million kilowatts, while China's first deep-sea wind power project has also broken ground there this year. In 2024, the income gap between urban and rural residents narrowed to a ratio of 1.83 — the lowest in years.

Jiangshan, aligning its growth with the new energy and advanced materials industries, has earmarked about 12,000 hectares of land for industrial use, securing space for a decade of development. Its urbanization rate rose to 62.9 percent in 2024 — a 1.5 percentage point increase year-on-year, outpacing the provincial average.