“Direct flights from Beijing to Lishui only take two and a half hours, which is equivalent to the driving time from Lishui to Hangzhou. It’s very convenient.” On July 15th, Ren Yu, the person in charge of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Investment Promotion Center, told reporters that recently, there has been a significant increase in the number of enterprises inquiring about flight schedules and arranging inspection trips. After the airport is opened to navigation, Lishui’s geographical advantage will be further highlighted, and it will also gather more resources such as funds, talents, and information.

On July 18th, Lishui Airport will witness the historic moment of its operation. At that time, Lishui will enter the “3-hour domestic” transportation circle. A 3-hour flight can cover key national cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Guiyang, fully connecting to the “main artery” of national development. From the “high-speed era” to the “high-speed rail era”, and then to the upcoming “aviation era”, over the past 25 years, Lishui has broken through geographical barriers by “opening the mountain gates” and freed itself from ideological shackles by “opening the mind”, gradually achieving a wonderful leap from building large transportation networks to integrating into the Yangtze River Delta, and then to moving towards high-level open development.

Transport Infrastructure Empowers Revolutionary Base's Ascent

“With improved transportation, Lishui can be seen as Kunshan.” Over the past 25 years, Lishui City has resolutely implemented a transportation-first strategy, cutting paths through mountains and building bridges across rivers, carving one leap after another into the transportation map of southwestern Zhejiang.

On December 23, 2005, the Jinhua-Lishui-Wenzhou Expressway opened to traffic; on December 26, 2015, the first high-speed train sped into Lishui Station; on September 27, 2020, the Quzhou-Ningde Railway began operations; on December 25, 2024, the Wenzhou-Lishui container river-sea intermodal route, the first of its kind on the Ou River, officially launched, marking the arrival of a new era of large ports, logistics, and industries for Ou River shipping.

Under the guidance of the transportation-first strategy, Lishui has successively achieved expressway access for every county, village roads for every rural community, completed the Jinhua-Lishui-Wenzhou Railway, Quzhou-Ningde Railway, and Jinhua-Taizhou Railway, revitalized the Ou River waterway, and built Lishui Airport, realizing the triple jump from the “expressway era” to the “high-speed rail era” and finally the “aviation era”.

Smooth roads and mobile populations have transformed regional dynamics and continuously driven economic upgrades along the routes. Dongtang Village in Jingning County became home to China’s first “Alibaba Freshippo Highland Vegetable Village”, allowing agricultural products from southwestern Zhejiang to reach Hangzhou and Shanghai by afternoon and urban dinner tables by evening. Lakou Town in Qingtian County, with both land and water transport, attracted AIMA Group’s “super factory” with a 2-billion-yuan investment, expected to generate 1.5 billion yuan in output by year-end and 5 billion yuan by 2026.

The extensive transport network has completely reversed Lishui’s fate of being “poor in the mountains, trapped on the roads”, bringing comprehensive socioeconomic development. The city’s GDP increased from 13.7 billion yuan in 2000 to 218.1 billion yuan in 2024, with its share of Zhejiang’s GDP increasing by 0.03 percentage points annually over the past three years. Both urban and rural incomes now rank among the top 40 nationwide for prefecture-level cities, first among 20 key revolutionary old-revolutionary base cities, with rural income growth leading Zhejiang for 16 consecutive years.

The opening of Lishui Airport holds epoch-making significance. It is reported that initial flights will connect to Beijing Capital, Shanghai Pudong, Shenzhen Bao’an, and Guiyang Longdongbao airports. After the winter-spring flight season, new routes to Wuhan, Chongqing, Chengdu, Qingdao, and Harbin may be added, with the goal of operating 10 or more routes annually.

“Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and other major cities will all be within a 3-hour flight from Lishui,” said a representative from the Lishui Airport Construction Headquarters. After the airport becomes operational, Lishui will enter the “311” comprehensive transport circle: 3 hours to domestic cities, 1 hour within Zhejiang, and 1 hour within the city. This will not only greatly shorten the distance between Lishui and major cities nationwide, but also mean qualitative improvements in the circulation efficiency of people, goods and information, injecting strong momentum into the city's open development.

Mountain-Sea Integration Propels Open Development

For mountainous regions, opening up is the key to breaking geographical barriers, activating development potential, and achieving overtaking on curves. For years, Lishui has “charged beyond its mountains” for development and “opened its mind” for leapfrogging, insisting on viewing Lishui beyond Lishui and creating new opportunities with a broader vision, continuously pioneering new realms of open development by leveraging advantages.

At the 2019 Zhejiang·Lishui (Shanghai) Promotion Week, Lishui Mountain Harvest agricultural products drew widespread attention. The 22nd Yangtze River Delta City Economic Coordination Conference was held in Lishui, with 41 member cities attending to discuss joint development. Ten Yangtze River Delta cities jointly launched a cultural tourism promotion, with Lishui inviting visitors to experience its New Year festivities.

In recent years, Lishui has steadfastly advanced the strategic pilot project of “dual recruitment and dual introduction”, actively integrated into the Yangtze River Delta, connected with Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and made all-out efforts to build an innovation and development zone for open economy in mountainous areas. From 2021 to May 2025, it has cumulatively introduced and landed 550 projects worth over 100 million yuan from the Yangtze River Delta region, with total contracted investment reaching 238.7 billion yuan.

Rooted in the mountains, striving toward the sea. As an important practice of the “Eight-Eight Strategy”, the Mountain-Sea Cooperation Program has injected strong momentum into Lishui’s leapfrog high-quality development.

The Lishui-Yonglian Intelligent Manufacturing Industrial Park, operating on a “fly-in” model, has become a “sci-tech-production-city” hub, attracting 353 companies in smart manufacturing, digital economy, and biopharma, and earning recognition as Lishui’s first national-level tech business incubator. The South Taihu-Qingyuan “industrial fly-in zone” introduced the Honeycomb Energy power lithium-ion battery project with a 12-billion-yuan investment. Hangzhou Lishui Digital Mansion, Lishui’s first “sci-tech fly-in”, has become a “bridgehead” for high-end talent recruitment, industrial upgrading and business incubation.

Since the implementation of the Mountain-Sea Cooperation Program in 2002, Lishui and its paired regions have continuously improved mechanisms and carried out multi-level, all-round cooperation. Since 2018, the city has cumulatively established 10 mountain-sea cooperation industrial parks, 30 mountain-sea cooperation “flying lands”, and 70 mountain-sea cooperation rural revitalization demonstration sites. These cooperative achievements have enabled Lishui to integrate into the Yangtze River Delta with a more open attitude and gain more development opportunities in regional coordination.

Currently, Lishui has established city-level pairing relationships with Ningbo, Jiaxing and Huzhou. Its 9 counties (county-level cities and districts) and Lishui Economic Development Zone have achieved full pairing coverage with 24 economically strong counties and 5 development zones from 7 cities within the province, realizing comprehensive pairing of key towns, schools and hospitals. In 2022, Ningbo and Lishui added a counterpart cooperation relationship for key revolutionary old areas on the basis of their original mountain-sea cooperation pairing, advancing with greater efforts the construction of a common prosperity demonstration zone for revolutionary old areas.

Global Connectivity Through Comprehensive Corridors

Savoring fine wines from around the globe, experiencing diverse coffee cultures, indulging in international lifestyle trends... For attendees, the annual Overseas Chinese Expo is nothing short of a grand gathering of world-class products. Since 2018, Qingtian County has hosted six Overseas Chinese Expos and four Coffee Expos, attracting over 3,000 foreign exhibitors from more than 70 countries, 4,800 overseas enterprises, and 20,000+ purchasers.

With the growing reputation of “Qingtian Global Goods”, the county has not only established bonded warehouses but also built “Ten Major Open Platforms” including the Overseas Chinese Imported Commodity City, World Wine Center, and Overseas Chinese Investment Project Trading Center, making “global sourcing and nationwide distribution” a reality in Qingtian County.

As a renowned hometown of overseas Chinese, Lishui City boasts 473,000 expatriates across 160+ countries and regions. In recent years, Lishui has implemented proactive opening-up strategies focused on “industrial cultivation and innovative cooperation”, actively participating in the Belt and Road Initiative to connect global resources. The city has thoroughly implemented the New Era Overseas Chinese Elements Return Project, facilitating two-way circulation between “Lishui economy” and “Lishui people’s economy”. From 2019 to June 2025, 127 overseas Chinese-related projects were secured with total investment reaching 44.8 billion yuan.

The rapid development of cross-border e-commerce continues to unleash advantages in “buying/selling globally”. Over 20 institutions including the Commerce Bureau and Lishui Customs formed a cross-border e-commerce service alliance, creating innovative service brands to help businesses go global. This year alone has seen nearly 20 resource matchmaking events, thematic salons, and platform promotion conferences, incubating 30+ cross-border entities and serving 400+ enterprises.

Liandu District pioneered a trinity industrial park integrating “platform + cross-border e-commerce + livestreaming”, focusing on incubating cross-border brands for local specialties like Lishui mountain delicacies, Longquan celadon, and Yunhe wooden toys. Through dual-channel operations combining “overseas Chinese stations + domestic livestreaming bases”, it has built a global sales network.

Lishui enterprises actively seize Belt and Road opportunities with bold “overseas order-seeking” initiatives. Over 130 local companies participated in the 137th Canton Fair, achieving intended transactions worth $26.4649 million. Yunhe wooden toy manufacturers tapped into overseas senior markets, with 1000+ elderly-friendly products gaining international popularity. The province’s first fresh moss export certificate was issued in Lishui, sending moss orders across mountains and seas...

From transportation metamorphosis featuring river-sea connectivity and aviation dreams, to open cooperation integrating mountains with oceans and connecting the world, Lishui’s 25-year journey has written a vivid chapter of high-quality development driven by high-level openness in southwestern Zhejiang.