The First Financial reporter found that 28 provinces have announced the permanent population data for 2024, of which 8 provinces have shown positive growth in the permanent population, the permanent population of 2 provinces is the same as the previous year, and the permanent population of 18 provinces has decreased compared with the previous year.

The eight provinces with positive growth in permanent population are Guangdong, Zhejiang, Xinjiang, Fujian, Hainan, Tibet, Anhui and Shaanxi. Among them, at the end of last year, the permanent population of Guangdong Province was 127.8 million, an increase of 740,000 from the end of last year. Since 2007, Guangdong has been ranked as the largest population province in China for 18 consecutive years. At the same time, Guangdong's population growth ranked first in the country last year.

In terms of birth population, Guangdong's birth population in 2024 increased by 100,000 compared with the previous year, reaching 1.13 million. This is also the first province with a birth population of 7 consecutive years and the only province with a birth population of more than 1 million for five consecutive years.

After Guangdong, Zhejiang's permanent population increased by 430,000 last year, ranking second in the country. Last year, all permanent populations in 11 prefecture-level cities in Zhejiang increased. Tang Hairu, vice chairman of the Zhejiang Urban Science Research Association, analyzed that Zhejiang is dominated by the private economy and has a wide range of areas, which is more beneficial to absorbing labor. At the same time, Zhejiang's regional economic development is relatively balanced, and the difference between urban and rural areas is small.

The population data of six provinces in the central region were released last year. According to the published data, among the six central provinces, only Anhui's permanent population showed positive growth in 2024. Data shows that the permanent population of Anhui Province was 61.23 million at the end of the year, an increase of 20,000 from the end of the previous year. The annual birth rate was 378,000, with a birth rate of 6.17‰; the death rate was 515,000, with a mortality rate of 8.41‰, and a natural growth rate of -2.24‰.

For a province, population growth includes both natural and mechanical growth (i.e., "net population inflow"). Last year, Anhui's population naturally decreased by 137,000, which means that last year, Anhui's population mechanical growth, that is, the new net inflow of cross-provincial population was 157,000.

In the view of experts, in recent years, in the process of building a world-class urban agglomeration with global influence, Anhui has deeply participated in the division of labor and cooperation in the development of the Yangtze River Delta, and many production capacity in the two provinces and one city have been transferred to Anhui. This has had a very obvious driving effect on Anhui's economy, and has led to the return of many people who were originally out in the two provinces and one city.

At the same time, Anhui's emerging industries have developed rapidly in recent years. In 2024, the construction of emerging industries agglomerations in Anhui Province will burst into new momentum, and the modern industrial systems such as new energy vehicles, integrated circuits, optical storage, and artificial intelligence will have higher "new content" and more "gold content". Among them, automobile production continued to grow by more than 40%, reaching 3.57 million vehicles, and the output of new energy vehicles increased by 94.5%, reaching 1.684 million vehicles, ranking second in the country in terms of output; the export volume of complete vehicles jumped to the first place in the country, and 1 in Anhui is built for every 4 cars exported nationwide. In addition, integrated circuit output increased by 47.4%, and industrial robot output increased by 81.4%.

The development of the industry has driven the rapid growth of practitioners. According to the Fifth National Economic Census Bulletin recently released by the National Bureau of Statistics, at the end of 2023, the number of employees in Anhui's legal entity units reached 17.739 million, an increase of 4.077 million in five years, an increase of 29.8% in five years, ranking first in the country.

In addition, the permanent population of some provinces has decreased compared with the previous year, but the main reason for the decrease is that the population naturally decreases, and the mechanical population growth remains positive. For example, the permanent population of Hubei Province at the end of the year was 58.34 million, a decrease of 40,000 from the end of the previous year, but the reason for the decrease was mainly the negative growth rate of population growth. Last year, Hubei's population naturally decreased by 183,000, but the population mechanically increased by 143,000.

The same situation also occurs in the Sichuan-Chongqing region. Although the permanent population in Sichuan and Chongqing decreased last year, the main reason for the decrease is that the natural population growth rate is negative. In terms of mechanical population growth, the total net inflow of Sichuan and Chongqing in 2024 was nearly 300,000.

In fact, although the population is still flowing into the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta and other places along the southeast coast. However, in the central and western regions, including megacities and megacities such as Wuhan, Chengdu, Chongqing, and Xi'an, the rapid development of emerging industries and high-end manufacturing industries in recent years has not only attracted more and more local college graduates to stay, but also attracted a large number of talents and population inflows.

Take Wuhan as an example, at the end of 2024, there were more than 16,500 high-tech enterprises in the city. The added value of high-tech industries in the whole year was 641.442 billion yuan, accounting for 30.4% of GDP. On November 7 last year, Wuhan Gangdi Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Gangdi Technology") was listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange Growth Enterprise Market, becoming the 68th listed company in Optics Valley.

In Chengdu, on March 26, the application for listing of the China Railway Corporation and the Beijing Stock Exchange was successfully approved; on March 27, Shanyou HVAC was listed on the Nasdaq; on March 28, Development Technology was listed on the Beijing Stock Exchange. So far, the total number of listed companies in Chengdu has increased to 152.

In 2024, Shaanxi's new energy vehicle production was 1.198 million units, an increase of 13.9% over the previous year; solar cell production was 82.6218 million kilowatts, an increase of 57.2%; integrated circuit wafer production was 8.854 million units, an increase of 36.7%. Among them, in 2024, the annual output of new energy vehicles in BYD Xi'an Industrial Park exceeded 1 million for the first time. The development of emerging industries has also driven the influx of population. At the end of 2024, the permanent population of Shaanxi Province was 39.53 million, an increase of 10,000 from the end of last year, of which the population naturally decreased by 17,000, and the population mechanically increased by 37,000.