Factories encouraged to build up, not out

In Maanshan city's Bowang district, Anhui province, a newly expanded electrical plant has bypassed local land shortages by reinforcing its second floor to hold one metric ton per square meter — allowing heavy industrial spoolers to run high above the ground.

This vertical setup is a textbook example of "industry going upstairs", a national policy shift that encourages manufacturers to increase output from their existing footprints. By forcing factories to grow vertically rather than horizontally, the strategy keeps traditional manufacturing hubs viable, powers high-tech upgrades and protects the country's vital farmland.

"It is not new land," said Jiang Donghang, general manager of Maanshan Shangdian Electrical Co, watching the copper strands feed into a spooler. "We consolidated several underused plots, demolished unsafe structures and built upward. On roughly the same area, we now have more than twice the usable floor space."

Jiang's factory is a microcosm of a national shift dating back to 2013 when the former ministry of land and resources introduced guidelines to address the inefficient use of land.

The Ministry of Natural Resources has since required that new construction land quotas be linked to local performance in revitalizing inefficient stock land. Supporting measures include greater flexibility in plot density, the issuance of special bonds to repurchase idle parcels, and the publication of model redevelopment cases to guide nationwide practice.

Progress under the pilot program remains robust. Data from the ministry shows that, as of the end of March, 100 pilot cities had launched redevelopment projects covering 79,800 cases, spanning 129,900 hectares.

During the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) period, total approved construction land nationwide was 8.6 percent lower than planned ceilings. Land consumption per unit of GDP fell by 19.36 percent, while more than 400,000 hectares of idle land were returned to productive use.

Wang Zhengyi, an official with the Ministry of Natural Resources' department of natural resource development and utilization, said these figures mark a decisive shift away from decades of low-density peripheral expansion toward more intensive use of land within existing urban boundaries.

He said that the policy reorientation is driven by both constraint and calculation. China treats arable land as a strategic red line, with around 12 percent of its territory suitable for intensive cultivation to feed 1.4 billion people. As the economy pivots toward advanced manufacturing, green energy and digital infrastructure, the marginal returns from continued suburban expansion are diminishing.

The objective, he added, is to reshape urban growth by increasing output efficiency, aligning land supply with industrial upgrading needs, and easing pressure on farmland.