China's 'Motown' has charms of its own

Not a tourist city but Wuhu's growing fast

- Jim Freeman

The first thing you need to know about the Chinese city of Wuhu is how to pronounce its name: it's not an ebullient Woo-hoo! exclamation, but more a strangled gasp - as if a woman with long pointy nails has goosed you on a tender part of your anatomy.

Though Wuhu is not the capital city of Anhui province - that's Hefei - it is effectively the largest. Two generations of industrialisation, urbanisation and urban sprawl have seen a conurbation of cities to create a megapolis with a total population of 10.6 million people.

The population of Wuhu itself is just under four million people.

I know this might be boring, but bear with me a moment: things begin to get interesting soon.

Anhui was an agricultural backwater until the late 1990s.

Now the province is booming and its nominal per capita gross domestic product (GDP) ranks 14th in China. Wuhu has the second strongest economy in Anhui after Hefei and its per capita GDP has more than doubled in the past 12 years. Residents' annual per capita disposable income grew 6.5% between 2021 and 2022.

Much of that growth coincides with the Wuhu municipal government's decision in 1997 to establish the Chery Automobile Company. Chinese government participation in motor manufacturing was nothing new: most vehicle-building companies in the country have greater or lesser degrees of state investment and control.

In just 27 years, Chery has built more than 15 million vehicles, including 1.75 million in the first nine months of this year, which helped see Chery debut on the Fortune Global 500 list in August 2024 with revenues of R720 billion. The company exports 47% of its vehicles.

Earlier this year, the Wuhu government decided to diversify. It withdrew the bulk of its investment from Chery - the company is now predominantly privately owned - and put its financial muscle behind a fledgling shipbuilding sector.

Yes, Chery is involved.