China Puts Industry Minister In Charge Of Key Semiconductor Hub Anhui Province

China’s industry minister is set to lead Anhui province, a key semiconductor hub, in the latest personnel reshuffle within the Communist Party.

Li Lecheng, 61, has served as minister of industry and information technology since April 2025.

State news agency Xinhua reported on Wednesday that Li had been appointed the party secretary of Anhui and a member of its standing committee, taking over both roles from Liang Yanshun.

Liang, Anhui party chief since June 2024, retains his role as party secretary of the provincial legislature, according to publicly available information.

Li is best known for transforming Xiangyang, a historic city in central Hubei province, into a major industrial centre, and later leading Liaoning province, in China’s northeastern “rust-belt” region, where he improved the business environment and boosted cooperation with foreign firms.

Li’s career began in mechanical manufacturing, after graduating in 1984 from what is today the Huazhong University of Science and Technology. Over the next 18 years, he rose through the ranks in the industry – serving as technician, head of technology development, factory chief, general manager and eventually chairman.

In 2017, he was appointed party secretary of Xiangyang, where he established the Hubei Free-Trade Zone – focusing on high-end equipment manufacturing, new energy vehicles, big data, cloud computing, commercial logistics and other services.

By the time he left Xiangyang in 2021, as many as 30 of the world’s top 500 companies – including Dongfeng, Nissan and Huawei Technologies – had set up factories in the city.

In October that year, Li was transferred to Liaoning as acting governor and deputy secretary of the provincial party committee.

Less than four years later, he was named China’s industry and information technology minister in place of Jin Zhuanglong, who has not been seen in public since late 2024.

Li has previously championed support for small-scale innovative firms in specialised industries, as a way to boost China’s technological self-reliance and modernise key industries.

Recognised by Beijing as a key driver of the national semiconductor industry, Anhui is home to more than 400 companies in the business, including Nexchip Semiconductor – China’s third-largest chip foundry.

Li’s appointment is among several leadership changes on the provincial level following Monday’s meeting of the Politburo – the party’s top decision-making body.

Also switching roles is Zhou Zuyi, the party secretary of Fujian, who will now lead the central province of Henan.

Wang Lujin, deputy party secretary of northern Hebei province since June 2024, will now take up the same role in Henan as deputy to Zhou, state-backed news portal The Paper reported.

Zhou took the helm in Fujian in November 2022, after six years as deputy director of the party Central Committee’s Organisation Department, which handles internal personnel affairs and talent management.

Zhao Long, deputy party secretary of Fujian since October 2021, has been promoted to provincial party chief. Before taking up the Fujian post, he served for over 20 years at the Ministry of Land and Resources.