On January 18 this year, Hubei Kangnong Seed Industry Co., Ltd.(hereinafter referred to as "Kangnong Seed Industry") opened its doors on the Beijing Stock Exchange, becoming the first stock in Hubei seed industry. This is another listed company welcomed in Changyang Tujia Autonomous County, Yichang City, Hubei Province, after Hubei Tongyi Konjac Company Limited in February last year.

Since 2015, three companies in Changyang County have been listed on the main board one after another, ranking among the top in all counties and cities in Hubei Province. In the former agricultural county, why did companies go public one after another? How does industrial development activate the county economy? With these questions in mind, the reporter walked into the front line to make a visit.

Choose the right track

At Hubei Tongyi Konjac Co., Ltd., the weekly new product appraisal meeting is the most stressful moment for employees. Accepting on-site "votes" from executives is the first hurdle for a new product to market.

Continuously seeking innovation and change, Tongyi Konjac Company has produced more than 300 products in 66 product series such as vegetarian tripe, jelly, skin cleaning cotton, and facial mask, which are sold to more than 40 countries and regions such as the United States, Canada, Russia, and South Korea.

In recent years, the company has targeted the tea drink market and independently developed a konjac crystal ball production line. Once launched, the new product has become the "new favorite" of tea drinks, and has been favored by well-known tea drink brands such as Mixue Ice City and Shanghang Aunt.

Hubei Heyuan Gas Co., Ltd.(hereinafter referred to as "Heyuan Gas") is also focused on specialized and innovative industry tracks. In January 2020, Heyuan Gas, as the first listed company in poverty-stricken counties in the province, can make a mark in the industry due to Heyuan Gas Company's hard training of "unique internal skills" for more than ten years. With breakthroughs in core technologies such as gas synthesis, separation, purification, and low temperature, the company is leading the way in the "specialization track" such as electronic special gases and electronic chemicals, electronic grade ultra-pure bulk gases, and new silicon-based functional materials.

The picture shows the liquid production base of Hubei Heyuan Gas Co., Ltd. (Data picture)

In 2023, Heyuan Gas Yichang Electronic Special Gas and Functional Materials Industrial Park Phase I will be completed one after another. It is understood that electronic special gas, as a key raw material for semiconductor manufacturing, is widely used in production fields such as chips, new energy, and biomedicine. Due to the existence of high technical barriers, most of China's electronic special gas is monopolized by foreign-funded gas companies. After the industrial park reaches full production capacity, the annual output value of Heyuan Gas is expected to exceed 5 billion yuan, of which more than a dozen electronic special gas products will be replaced by manufacturing in China.

"Specialized and innovative enterprises have long focused on subdivided fields, with strong innovation capabilities, good quality and efficiency, and great development potential. They are the backbone force in promoting high-quality development of the industry." Chen Wanhua, director of the Changyang County Bureau of Science, Technology, Economy and Information Technology, said that in 2023, the output value of 17 specialized, new and medium-sized enterprises in the county will account for 57.1% of the output value of industrial enterprises above designated size in the county, with an average growth rate of 13.6%, which is higher than the average growth rate of industrial enterprises above designated size in the county. The average growth rate of enterprises is 2.6 percentage points.

Let "small people" release great energy, Changyang strives to build a path for cultivating specialized and new enterprises. Vigorously carry out special actions for gradient cultivation of high-quality enterprises, comprehensively investigate and arrange the development of enterprises, and implement the hierarchical cultivation plan of "individual transformation of enterprises, small promotion of regulations, refined regulations, and excellent listing".

Changyang County has issued the "Incentive Service Plan for the Industrial Doubling Action of Changyang Tujia Autonomous County during the 14th Five-Year Plan" to list enterprises and obtain qualifications such as specialization and innovation, individual championships, and national high-tech enterprises, and provide financial support in market development, technological transformation, and technological transformation. In 2023, enterprises have applied for a total of 20.44 million yuan in science and technology innovation loans, and have cashed in rewards and subsidies of 73.53 million yuan.

Accelerate the gathering of high-level innovative talents to enterprises. More than 120 scientific and technological commissioners have been selected for enterprises; a "school-local" joint platform has been established and 24 industry-university-research cooperation matters have been signed with domestic universities and institutes. The registered amount of technology contracts in 2023 will be 1.11 billion yuan, an increase of 98% compared with 2022.

Planting fertile soil

Mountain counties have congenital deficiencies in land resources, transportation location, human resources, etc. How can barren land grow towering trees and a better business environment are undoubtedly the best nourishment for corporate growth.

The key to optimizing the business environment lies in changing work styles. For two consecutive years, Changyang has carried out television interviews and special inquiries on the business environment, and broadcast short videos of unannounced visits. Functional departments accepted "sharp inquiries" from the host and "on-site evaluations" from entrepreneur representatives. By turning the blade inward, we strive to eliminate blockages, pain points and difficulties for business entities and the masses in doing things.

The core of optimizing the business environment is to reduce costs and allow companies to travel lightly and run at full speed. Changyang will implement the "Big County and Big Transportation" strategy starting from 2021, establish a three-level logistics system covering the county, and reduce logistics costs by 10%; continue to promote "getting one thing done efficiently", achieving a time reduction of 93.2% and a maximum of 100% run once; We implemented various policies for tax reduction and fee reduction, continued to improve the list of policies that benefit enterprises and help enterprises, cashed in 70.52 million yuan of funds, benefiting 431 enterprises, and added 330 million yuan in tax reductions and fee reductions and tax refunds. Yichang City has also established a full-cycle listing support system from the levels of financial incentives, tax incentives, and special support. The maximum reward for listed companies can reach 8 million yuan.

Whether the business environment is good or not, business entities vote with their feet.

"This is the third project I invested in Changyang. It only took 32 days from signing to implementation!" Xu Yunfeng, chairman of Anpinyuan Technology Co., Ltd., was very excited at such a speed. In order to speed up the implementation of the project, Changyang implemented the responsibility system for the first project, provided services for the entire life cycle of the project, and made every effort to provide services such as land acquisition and demolition, and factor guarantee to accelerate the implementation of the project.

Enterprises have the most say in whether the business environment is good or not.

In Changyang, each "four-up" enterprise has a service team of "1 county-level leader +1 leading unit +1 service class + local township", each enterprise and one policy to target difficulties.

"I also have troubles when I have too many orders." One day in early 2022, in the production workshop of Kangnong Seed Industry, a casual conversation between General Manager Peng Xubing and Zhang Huagang, the "chief waiter" of the Changyang Economic Development Zone Management Committee, made the entire development zone take heart. It turns out that with the expansion of business, the storage space of Kangnong Seed Industry continues to be tight, and the production line production capacity urgently needs to be improved. The construction of the third phase of Kangnong Science and Technology Industrial Park is put on the agenda.

In the afternoon of that day, the development zone set up a special work team to arrange land acquisition for the project, and successively invested nearly 600,000 yuan to help improve infrastructure construction in the park. In just 9 months, a 5000-square-meter storage center and a corn seed production line were put into use, successfully catching up with a new round of order opportunities.

Back-feeding and driving

Around the Spring Festival in 2024, heavy snow will fall across Changyang. Wu Dongjing, the first secretary of Wufangling Village, Ziqiu Town, Changyang County, went from house to house with village cadres to distribute "orders" from Kangnong Seed Industry to the people.

Last year, Kangnong Seed Industry implemented the "Seed Return" project and developed more than 4000 acres of seed production bases in more than 20 villages in the county, of which Wufangling Village is one. The company not only provides seeds, fertilizers and pesticides, technical guidance and other services, but also purchases them at a price of 2.6 yuan per catty. Compared with planting grain corn, the income per mu can be increased by 1000 yuan to 2000 yuan.

Villager Liu Zongde had a bumper harvest of 6 acres of corn planted on trial last year, and he decided to continue planting this year. At present, Wufangling Village has received "orders" for more than 300 acres of land. "The seed production base will increase to 20,000 acres in 2024 and to 30,000 acres to 50,000 acres in 2025, building Changyang into a major corn seed production county in the country." Peng Xubing said.

As a traditional agricultural county, the Changyang County Party Committee and County Government have proposed to use the concept of industry to grasp agriculture. To this end, the county vigorously promotes agricultural industrialization, focusing on cultivating and strengthening a number of leading agricultural enterprises such as Kangnong Seed Industry and Fengrun Biological, in order to form a positive interaction between industry and agriculture and promote the integrated development of urban and rural areas. And Konjac is undoubtedly the most representative "masterpiece" among them.

In March 2009, Changyang wrote "Building the Hometown of Konjac in China" into the government work report, becoming a guide for the adjustment of the county's semi-alpine industrial structure. Successive county party committees and county governments have unswervingly set their goals. Since 2015, the local government has supported konjac as a key industry for poverty alleviation. In 2019, Changyang became one of the "National Key Counties for the Konjac Industry".

As the "flagship" of the national konjac industry, the "butterfly effect" of Hubei Consensus Konjac Company to increase farmers 'income has been highlighted. In 2007, the county's konjac planting area was less than 6000 acres, and the purchase price was 0.4 yuan per catty. By 2019, the planting area had expanded to 42000 acres. The purchase price of fresh konjac has also been rising, reaching a maximum of 4 yuan per catty.

Vigorously promote the "enterprise + cooperative + farmer" operation model and adopt benefit distribution mechanisms such as "land equity participation + labor income + operating dividends" to drive farmers to increase their income and become rich nearby. The three companies have helped Changyang build county-specific industrial clusters and promoted the coordinated development of upstream and downstream enterprises. They have successively spawned 3 provincial-level listed "golden seed" companies and 5 "silver seed" companies.

"We will actively give full play to the leading role of listed companies, strive to improve the mechanism of linking farmers to enrich farmers, and continue to add strong momentum to the in-depth implementation of the project to strengthen counties." Changyang County Party Secretary Li Zegang said.

Reporter/Dong Qingsen and Liu Jie