Thirty years of cooperation between East China's Fujian province and Northwest China's Ningxia Hui autonomous region have transformed lives across thousands of miles.
From garment factories to e-commerce hubs, from chili processing to cultural tourism, the partnership has moved far beyond its early days of mushroom farming and vineyard planting.
Today, it stands as a working model of what cross-regional collaboration can achieve.
In Minning town of Yinchuan, Ningxia, local authorities fast-tracked licensing, inspections, and renovations for Chinese clothing brand Hongxing Erke's new plant. A vacant commercial building became a 20,000-square-meter modern workshop with 12 production lines.
A worker overlocks the edges of trousers at the Hongxing Erke plant in Minning town. [Photo/Ningxia Daily]
Nearby the plant, the 5-hectare See Minning Drama Village broke ground in March and opened July 1. With an investment of over 100 million yuan ($14 million), it is a living monument to 30 years of Fujian-Ningxia cooperation, and more than just a performance venue.
In Yanchi county, Wuzhong, Fujian businessman Shi Zhixiong invested about 20 million yuan to transform a near-empty e-commerce operational base.
With local government support, the base, integrating an e-commerce public service center, an operations base, and a logistics sorting and distribution center, was fully operational in just over three months.
It now draws orders from across the region and has brought hundreds of young people back to work in their hometowns. Last year, it was selected as a national case study for county-level e-commerce innovation.
In Pengyang county, Guyuan, a Fujian-backed company invested over 50 million yuan to build a chili processing plant. It now ships over 3 metric tons of chili products daily, with its sales projected to hit 100 million yuan this year.
Thirty years ago, this collaboration started with mushroom farming and vineyards. Today, it spans manufacturing, e-commerce, and cultural tourism. Each project is a reminder that cross-regional cooperation, backed by genuine commitment, can make a real difference in the lives of local residents.