Yan'an: Inheriting Red Legacy, Forging New Development

1. City Characteristics and Development Orientation

Yan'an City sits on the Loess Plateau in northern Shaanxi Province. It hosts the mausoleum of Xuanyuan Yellow Emperor, the shared cultural ancestor of all Chinese people, making it a sacred destination for Chinese descendants to trace their roots worldwide. Meanwhile, it is a world-famous revolutionary holy land, a national historical and cultural city, and a national excellent tourism city, also designated as a sub-central city of Shaanxi Province.

Covering an administrative area of 37,031 square kilometers, Yan'an recorded a permanent resident population of 2,218,200 at the end of 2025, with an urbanization rate of 64.05%. Its regional GDP hit RMB 2372.17 billion in 2025, growing by 4.3% year-on-year.

Centered on the official "One Park, Four Zones" strategic layout for the 15th Five-Year Plan period, Yan'an safeguards the spiritual home of Chinese Communists and builds four national demonstration zones: the Pilot Zone for Ecological Protection and High-quality Development in the Yellow River Basin, National Apple High-quality Development Pilot Zone, Modern Energy Economy Demonstration Zone, and National Revolutionary Cultural Relics Protection & Utilization Demonstration Zone. Following the "164" work framework, the city fosters the "7+25" modern industrial clusters to drive comprehensive industrial transformation and high-quality development of the old revolutionary base area, building a beloved sacred land for people across the country.

2. Investment Promotion Overview and Investment Environment Features

Yan'an has formed a comprehensive three-dimensional transportation network, with Xi'an-Yan'an High-speed Railway, Yan'an-Yulin High-speed Railway, expanded Yan'an Airport and a fully functional national inland port already approved and put into operation. A dedicated green channel for investment attraction and a full-cycle integrated one-stop enterprise service platform have been established, delivering high-standard whole-process services for domestic and overseas investors.

In 2024, Yan'an carried out chain-based targeted investment attraction focusing on its seven core industrial clusters. At the 8th Silk Road International Expo, the city signed 175 investment projects with total contracted investment reaching RMB 824.75 billion. A total of 418 ongoing investment projects were advanced across the city, with steady growth of actual domestic paid-in capital, attracting multiple central SOEs and Fortune Global 500 enterprises to lay out industrial bases in Yan'an.

3. Current Key Industrial Investment Directions

(1) High-end Modern Energy & Chemical Industry 

Accelerate comprehensive clean utilization, deep processing and industrial transformation of coal, oil and natural gas resources. Leverage the city's advantages of low electricity and gas costs to introduce high-end refined chemical projects, and cultivate 100-billion-yuan-level characteristic energy industrial clusters under the "Stabilize Coal, Expand Oil, Boost Gas, Strengthen Power" development strategy. Build two 10-million-kilowatt-level power bases for thermal power and new energy respectively, focusing on integrated wind-solar-storage projects.

(2) Characteristic Food Deep Processing Industry

Introduce a batch of leading enterprises and deep processing projects for agricultural products. Focus on building standardized processing bases for livestock, potatoes, beans, fruits, grain and oil, to form a complete food processing industrial cluster with an annual total output value exceeding RMB 100 billion, and support the construction of a 100-billion-yuan apple industrial cluster.

(3) High-end Intelligent Equipment Manufacturing 

Focus on serialized, large-scale and high-end product development, attract domestic and foreign manufacturers of oilfield service equipment, intelligent coal mining machinery and energy chemical complete sets of equipment, and build a supporting industrial base for energy equipment R&D and manufacturing.

(4) Strategic Emerging Industries

Develop advanced carbon-silicon composite new materials, graphene and solid waste comprehensive utilization projects to expand the new materials industrial chain. Scale up photovoltaic, wind power, biomass and natural gas power generation projects to build a 10-million-kilowatt comprehensive new energy base. Introduce high-tech enterprises engaged in optical fiber & cable, big data application software and cloud computing, and cultivate digital economy and artificial intelligence industrial clusters.

(5) Modern Characteristic Agriculture 

Speed up construction of four core agricultural production zones for high-quality apples, facility vegetables, Tan sheep breeding and minor grain crops, and build 200 standardized modern agricultural sci-tech demonstration parks. Prioritize apple industrial upgrading to build a national pilot zone for high-quality apple industry development.

(6) Diversified Cultural Tourism Industry 

Develop six major cultural industrial parks, and foster five characteristic tourism brands: red revolutionary tourism, Yellow Emperor historical & cultural tourism, Yellow River natural heritage tourism, Loess Plateau folk custom tourism and ecological green tourism. Integrate research & study travel and cultural creative industries to build a 100-billion-yuan cultural tourism industrial cluster and a national demonstration zone for revolutionary cultural relics utilization.