Neijiang · Industrial Robot Technology Services

During the Republic of China era, manufacturing in Neijiang was confined to traditional trades such as brick and tile, lime, iron smelting, coal mining, textiles and food processing. After the Chengdu–Chongqing Railway opened, Neijiang embarked on industrialized sugar production: the Neijiang Sugar Factory was completed and put into operation in 1956 with an annual output of 36,000 tons of sugar, more than three times the entire pre-railway output of Neijiang; by 1959, seven of the eight large and medium-sized sugar mills in Sichuan (all except the Fushun Sugar Factory) were located in Neijiang, and at its peak the Neijiang Sugar Factory ranked third in Asia and first in southwest China in sugar production scale. During the Third Front construction period, leveraging the location and transport advantages of the Chengdu–Chongqing Railway, the state laid out 11 industries in Neijiang covering aviation, conventional weapons and heavy machinery (of the 40 industry categories then in the province, Neijiang had 35), relocating or newly building more than 20 large and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises such as the Shanchuan Machinery Factory, the Longchang Engineering Equipment Factory and the Changjiang Machine Tool Electric Apparatus Factory; in the 1960s, 28 ministry-level projects and 22 provincial-level construction projects settled in Neijiang. After reform and opening up, township enterprises grew rapidly and textiles, pharmaceuticals, steel, cement, chemicals and mining expanded at pace. The “Five Whites” industries (white sugar, white meat, white paper, white cloth and baijiu) were all the rage, and Neijiang’s economic aggregate at one point ranked behind only Chengdu and Chongqing, earning it the nickname “Nei Laosan”. From the 1990s, the decline of resource-based industries and the relocation of Third Front enterprises pushed industry through a painful transition.

In 2025, Neijiang’s GDP reached 205.066 billion yuan, up 6.6%; value added of the secondary industry was 70.455 billion yuan, up 7.0%; above-scale industrial value added grew 10.8%, with a product sales rate of 95.9%. Among 34 major industry categories, 26 posted value-added growth: computer, communications and other electronic equipment manufacturing rose 54.0%, ferrous metal smelting and rolling 18.2%, pharmaceutical manufacturing 15.0%, and non-metallic mineral products 6.2%. Above-scale high-tech industrial value added grew 37.4%, including 54.1% in electronic and communications equipment manufacturing and 90.9% in computer and office equipment manufacturing. The four leading industries (“shale gas +, vanadium-titanium +, sweet flavor +, equipment +”) together with the two emerging industries of biomedicine and electronic information generated 122.64 billion yuan in output value, accounting for 86% of total above-scale industrial output. The number of above-scale industrial enterprises exceeded 740, double the figure at the end of the 13th Five-Year Plan. Representative companies: TCP Group’s Red Bull beverage (Sichuan) production base is its largest investment in China, with the most production lines and the highest level of automation; at Xiongfuruineng in the Baima park of the Neijiang high-tech zone, a display module rolls off the line every 3.5 seconds, with daily output of 100,000 sets; the smart production line of Jinhong Crankshaft in the Neijiang ETDZ has raised crankshaft machining precision to the micrometer level.

Neijiang’s retrofits are driven mainly by smart upgrading and digital transformation. The city has built 53 smart factories (workshops) and one smart park; six enterprises were selected for the MIIT’s digital integration standard-compliance pilots, and six enterprises (projects) were selected for provincial-level demonstration pilots; its overall 5G ranking has held fifth place in the province for three consecutive years. Digital transformation has made notable progress in power equipment, light industry, non-ferrous metals and other sectors: a former steel plant applied new technologies to achieve one-button smart steelmaking, and a former bearing plant adopted new processes to enter the high-end new-energy vehicle supply chain. Concrete robot application scenarios include the smart robotic arms of Longchang Shanchuan Machinery Co., Ltd.; at the smart production workshop of Sichuan Shenzhou Precision, dozens of precision machine tools run at high speed while quality inspectors calibrate parameters at the 0.001-millimeter level with coordinate measuring machines; and Jinhong Crankshaft’s smart production line has lifted crankshaft machining precision to the micrometer level. On the agricultural side, “boiler ginger” in Weiyuan is grown under smart cultivation (one-touch temperature control by phone), and smart agricultural equipment covers more than 2,300 mu of high-standard farmland at the national modern agriculture industrial park in Jieshi Town, Longchang. No authoritative statistics on Neijiang’s industrial robot stock, annual new installations or robot density could be found through public channels (to be verified).