Founded in February 1993 and approved as a provincial economic and technological development zone by the provincial government in January 1996, Yangquan Economic and Technological Development Zone (hereinafter called "the Zone") is one of the earliest development zones in Yangquan, which has jurisdiction over five administrative areas in the suburbs of 10.56 sq km. and has a planned area of 3.83 sq km. Its administrative-equivalent level was confirmed as the deputy-bureau-director level and was changed to the county level in 2016. In June 2017, the zone carried out an extension project with a planned area of 80 sq. km. after the approval of the provincial government to integrate the east industrial park, the suburban Baiquan Industrial Park and the suburban Yinying Industrial Park.

Under the implementation of package reforms such as the "three furthering and three systems changing" in 2017, secretary of the Party Working Committee and the director of the Management Committee shared responsibility to develop a sound team of leadership; realized the employment system of the entire staff of authorities and government-funded institutions; developed Performance Related Pay plan to be implemented from the start of the fourth quarter; reorganized and adjusted the existing departments towards Large Department System management in which seven large departments of the Party and government office, the human resources department, the industrial development and statistics department, the investment and cooperation department, the construction management department, the financial management and operation department, and the administrative approval service bureau are set up. The Zone divided social management functions as well as education, health administration functions the likes of 11 administrative villages and 12 communities, and transferred jurisdictions of seven functions of Yangquan No 10 Middle School, Yangquan No 20 Middle School, Family Planning Service Station for Population of students and scholars association, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the Social Security Center, and the Public Employment Service Center to the suburbs. Based on the nine existing accredited agencies of the State Taxation Administration, local Tax Service, Land and Resources, Industry and Commerce, Quality Supervision, Public Security, Traffic Police, Fire, and Justice, four added ones consist of agencies of Food and Drug, Planning, Safety Supervision, and Environmental Protection. Municipal governments delegated and granted administrative powers to deal with 616 matters in the development zones within two years.

With two decades of development, the Zone has been a residential area in the west division as the industrial structure initially formed a new generation of IT marked by a Baidu cloud computing center, equipment manufacturing represented by Yangquan machinery manufacturing, and leading industries such as new materials ones with Carbon Nano-onions, LiTeng High-tech Magnet as embodiments.

After the expansion of the Zone in 2017, 2,881 enterprises joined in, including 21 industrial enterprises above designated size, 28 above-norm enterprises of wholesale, retail, accommodation and food, 36 construction and real estate enterprises, nine imports and exports enterprises and three foreign-invested enterprises. The GDP reached 2.9 billion yuan, including 1.82 billion yuan of industrial added value, 480 million yuan of tax revenue, 5.8 billion yuan of the gross output value of industrial enterprises above designated size, 2.29 billion yuan of fixed assets investment and 356 million yuan of total import and export value.

In the first half of 2018, the Zone saw a GDP of 1.47 billion yuan, including 963 million yuan of industrial added value, 140 million yuan of tax revenue, 2.38 billion yuan of the gross output value of industrial enterprises above designated size, 840 million yuan of fixed assets investment and 158 million yuan of total import and export value.