How Baiyin City Succeeded in Resource Transformation: A Case Study
Background
Baiyin, located in Gansu Province along the Yellow River, was founded in 1956 as China’s first large-scale copper mining base. For over six decades, it produced more than 6.5 million tons of copper, earning the nickname “Copper City.” At its peak in the 1980s, copper mining and smelting contributed over 75% of the city’s industrial output and employed nearly 120,000 workers in state-owned enterprises.
By 2020, the situation had reversed. Proven copper reserves fell from an estimated 5 million tons in the 1960s to less than 1.2 million tons. Production costs tripled as mines extended deeper underground. The city’s GDP per capita dropped to ¥38,000 — well below the national average of ¥72,000. Baiyin was classified by the State Council as a “resource-exhausted city” requiring comprehensive transformation. Without a new strategy, the city faced a future of economic decline and population loss.
For foreign businesses, Baiyin’s story is not unique. Dozens of Chinese resource-dependent cities face similar pressures. But Baiyin’s response — a structured “scenario-based investment” model — offers a replicable blueprint relevant to any company evaluating industrial park or resource-reclamation investments in China’s interior.
Challenge
Baiyin’s core problem was structural. In 2023, non-ferrous metal processing still accounted for 61% of industrial value-added output. When copper prices fell 18% in 2022, the city’s fiscal revenue dropped ¥1.2 billion in a single year. Unemployment among former mining workers reached 12.4% in the worst-affected districts. Between 2019 and 2023, Baiyin lost an estimated 58,000 working-age residents to other provinces — the equivalent of nearly 10% of its urban workforce.
Environmental liabilities compounded the crisis. Decades of extraction left 4,700 hectares of contaminated land and 36 tailings ponds requiring remediation. The city spent ¥2.8 billion between 2018 and 2023 on cleanup, but an estimated ¥8.5 billion more would be needed to fully restore affected areas. Traditional investment attraction — offering generic tax breaks and land discounts — had failed to attract meaningful new industry. Between 2020 and 2023, Baiyin secured only ¥6.3 billion in private industrial investment, barely enough to replace one medium-sized mine.
Two additional challenges frustrated foreign investors specifically. First, project approval timelines averaged 18 to 24 months due to fragmented permitting across municipal bureaus. Second, no single point of entry existed for international companies to assess opportunities — investment materials were available only in Chinese and lacked financial modeling.
Solution
In January 2024, Baiyin’s municipal government launched the “Scenario-Based Investment Attraction” (场景招商) strategy. The concept was direct: instead of offering generic incentives, the city identified 47 specific urban and industrial scenarios where investors could build revenue-generating projects. Each scenario came with pre-approved land use, environmental permits, and a projected return-on-investment model.
The six priority sectors were: non-ferrous rare earth deep processing, circular chemicals from mining waste, new materials for new energy vehicles, clean energy (solar and hydrogen), cultural tourism based on industrial heritage, and specialty agriculture using reclaimed land.
Four flagship projects defined the strategy:
– A ¥3.2 billion rare earth recycling park processing 50,000 tons of e-waste annually
– A ¥1.8 billion agrivoltaic farm combining solar panels with goji berry cultivation on 2,000 hectares of reclaimed mining land
– A ¥900 million industrial heritage tourism zone converting a former copper smelter into a museum and convention center
– A ¥2.1 billion hydrogen production facility using waste heat from existing smelters
By July 2024, Baiyin published a detailed “Scenario Investment Guide” in both Chinese and English and opened a one-stop service center for foreign investors. The center consolidated approvals across five municipal bureaus into a single window with a guaranteed 90-day processing timeline. Incentives included land-use discounts of up to 40%, five-year tax holidays for clean energy projects, and expedited visa processing for foreign technicians.
The city also introduced a “no more than three meetings” policy — investors needed at most three face-to-face meetings with municipal officials to finalize a project agreement. This reduced negotiation time from an average of 14 months to 3-5 months for the first 15 projects signed.
Results
As of July 2026, Baiyin’s transformation is measurable across five dimensions:
Investment volume: The city signed 38 formal agreements totaling ¥42 billion in committed capital. Of this, ¥18.5 billion came from outside Gansu Province, including ¥4.2 billion from foreign-invested enterprises based in Germany, Japan, and Singapore. The average project size was ¥1.1 billion, compared to just ¥280 million under the previous model.
Industrial restructuring: Non-resource industrial output grew 34% year-on-year in H1 2026, reaching ¥27.6 billion. The share of resource-dependent industries in total industrial output fell from 61% in 2023 to 47% in mid-2026 — the first time it had dropped below 50% in the city’s history.
Energy transition: Clean energy capacity reached 2.8 GW, up from just 0.7 GW in 2023. Solar now provides 38% of the city’s electricity, compared to 12% three years earlier. The agrivoltaic farm alone generates 420 GWh annually while supporting 1,200 agricultural jobs.
Employment and population: The six priority sectors created 68,000 new jobs, reducing the city’s unemployment rate from 8.7% in 2023 to 4.2% in mid-2026. Of these, 22,000 positions directly employed former mining workers retrained through a government program. Net population outflows reversed in Q3 2025 for the first time in six years.
Economic performance: Baiyin’s GDP grew 6.8% in H1 2026 — outperforming the national average of 5.2% for the first time since 2012. Per capita GDP recovered to ¥56,000, narrowing the gap with the national average. Fiscal revenue from non-resource sectors rose ¥1.7 billion year-on-year, compensating for continued decline in mining tax receipts.
Lessons Learned
For foreign businesses evaluating resource-transformation opportunities in China, Baiyin’s case offers three actionable takeaways.
Scenario-based models reduce entry risk. By presenting pre-approved, modeled projects, Baiyin cut the typical project approval timeline from 18-24 months to just 4-6 months. Foreign companies in rare
