The 32nd China Lanzhou Investment and Trade Fair grandly opened. As both the host city and a key featured city of this year’s event, the Lanzhou Pavilion adopted “Lanzhou Blue” as its overall visual foundation, with a dynamic light strip depicting the winding Yellow River running through the entire exhibition space. Six major economic development sectors were showcased, and the pavilion innovatively established an integrated system combining display, investment promotion, and sales, making it a standout highlight of the fair. Focusing on core topics such as the pavilion’s design philosophy, industrial layout planning, innovation in investment attraction models, and the city’s development vision, our reporter conducted an exclusive interview with Wang Wenchun, a Grade?I Staff Member of the Planning and Project Section of the Lanzhou Bureau of Industry and Information Technology, for an in?depth interpretation of Lanzhou’s practical approach to leveraging the Lanzhou Fair platform to amplify its primacy as the provincial capital and accumulate momentum for urban development.

Stepping into the Lanzhou Pavilion at the Lanzhou Fair, the clear blue tones combined with flowing light installations depicting the meandering Yellow River create a highly distinctive visual identity. When discussing the deeper concept behind the pavilion's design, Wang Wenchun explained that the exhibition hall uses light and shadow to recreate the winding form of the Yellow River, carrying two core layers of meaning. Lanzhou is the only provincial capital in China through which the Yellow River flows directly through the city center; the river is a natural symbol etched into the city's very bloodline. At the same time, the design draws inspiration from the timeless poetic line “The Yellow River's waters come from the sky,” fully showcasing the majestic and broad cultural spirit of the land of Longyuan (Gansu), and skillfully blending the city's unique natural endowment with its profound cultural heritage.

Inside the pavilion, six functional display sections were arranged, covering urban economy, county economy, development zone economy, private economy, digital economy, and open economy, systematically outlining a complete blueprint for Lanzhou’s high?quality industrial development. Wang Wenchun noted that the layout of these six economic sectors closely aligns with the core requirements for fostering new quality productive forces, fits the practical realities of the city’s industrial development, and resonates with the provincial Party committee and government’s deployment of the “Five Strengths” action plan. Each sector has a clear positioning, and they are interconnected and complementary, jointly forming a synergistic force for coordinated development.

The urban economy focuses on urban?oriented advanced manufacturing, driving the city’s transformation away from dependence on traditional heavy industries, fostering high?end, precision, and cutting?edge industries through scientific and technological innovation, and empowering the iterative upgrading of traditional industries through new digital and smart manufacturing technologies. The county economy takes the “small county, big city” development approach as a key lever to consolidate the foundation for the city’s overall industrial growth. The development zone economy relies on one state?level new area and two state?level development zones, coordinating with various counties to host and implement industrial projects. The private economy serves as a backbone force in activating the city’s economic vitality, deeply tapping into the innovation potential of private enterprises and relying on market?driven innovation to enhance industrial quality and efficiency. The digital economy closely follows the national digital development strategy, empowering the transformation and upgrading of all industries through digital technologies across every dimension. The open economy, grounded in Lanzhou’s strategic position as a core node on the Silk Road Economic Belt, coordinates internally with other cities and prefectures within the province for synergistic development, while externally facilitating trade and economic flows with Central Asia, thus building a two?way opening?up pattern that links internal and external dynamics and enables the mutual exchange of production factors.

Unlike previous sessions that primarily featured static displays of achievements, this year’s Lanzhou Pavilion has made a groundbreaking shift in its exhibition approach by integrating three major functions—display and promotion, project investment attraction, and product sales—thereby transforming the footfall advantage of the Lanzhou Fair platform into core competitive strengths for the provincial capital. Wang Wenchun explained that the pavilion has specially designated a project release area and a business negotiation zone. During the fair, various municipal departments and county-level governments were coordinated to hold dedicated project promotion sessions in staggered time slots, collectively unveiling 174 high-quality investment projects spanning multiple sectors. With the government proactively offering investment opportunities, business visitors were able to engage in on-site matchmaking and in-depth discussions, and multiple market entities have already expressed cooperation intentions and entered the pavilion for further talks and negotiations.

At the same time, the pavilion has added a brand?new online live?streaming exhibition and sales zone, addressing the shortcoming of previous years when the second?floor exhibition area lacked a sales function. By leveraging mainstream live?streaming platforms and enterprises' own e?commerce channels, it has intensively promoted specialty products from Longyuan (Gansu), creating a complete production?to?sales chain that integrates online display with offline transactions. Among the pavilions of the 14 cities and prefectures across the province, Lanzhou pioneered the integrated operation model of “Exhibition, Investment, and Sales,” simultaneously delivering multiple values—image presentation, project investment attraction, and product marketing—within a limited exhibition space. This fully embodies the principles of frugality, pragmatism, efficiency, and intensity in fair organization, and demonstrates the provincial capital’s strong capacity for resource integration and industrial undertaking.

Extending a sincere invitation to both domestic and international exhibitors and investors, Lanzhou took the opportunity of the Lanzhou Fair to issue a warm call for cooperation. Wang Wenchun stated that Lanzhou currently boasts a continuously strengthened industrial foundation, an increasingly well?developed system of supporting policies, and a business environment that has been iteratively optimized, providing a solid groundwork for hosting high?quality industrial projects of all types. He warmly welcomed entrepreneurs and investors from across the country to visit Lanzhou, conduct on?site inspections, and explore investment and business opportunities. He further emphasized that all municipal government departments will provide meticulous, full?cycle “shop assistant?style” services throughout the entire process, fully ensuring the implementation and launch of projects, and working hand in hand with all partners to propel Lanzhou’s industrial development to a new level.