With a good agricultural foundation, Nantong is known as an important agricultural and sideline products production base in China. The cultivated area of the city totals 7 million mu and, with the superb soil quality and highly industrialized management, it is a well-known production base for grain, cotton, edible oil, jute, live hog, goat, poultry, vegetables, and flowers, etc. Nantong enjoys rich maritime resources, with the annual output of seawater and freshwater products standing at more than 600 thousand tons, of which the export of hard clams accounting for over two thirds of the country's total clam output. In 2003, the city's gross output value in agriculture, forestry, husbandry, and fishery reached RMB 23.15 billion, exhibiting a 4.1% y-o-y growth.

        Nantong is also one of the cradles of China's modern national industry. After more than one hundred years' development, the city has formed a modern industrial system consisting of light textile as its main body and other supporting industries such as machinery, electronics, chemical, medicine, construction materials, metallurgy, ship building, and electric power. It is an important export base for products such as textile, garments, vessel construction and repairing s , fine chemicals, and electronic information. With a strong foundation for textile industry, it is also known as one of the 12 textile export bases and 10 garment production bases. The city's basic electronic products hold considerable advantages, and it has the largest electronic component production base nationwide with the integrated circuit encapsulation technology of the Sino-Japan joint venture Nantong Fujitru Fujitsu Company taking the lead among its domestic counterparts. The chemical industry has completed a series of the largest Sino-foreign fine chemical projects in the country, while the machinery and ship building industry has formed an internationally advanced shipbuilding and repair base and container production base represented by Zhongyuan Kawasaki . The city's industrial added-value for the year totaled RMB 45.237 billion, up 17.7% y-o-y.

        Nantong is known as the Home of Architecture and its main economic and technological indicators rank first in the province for many consecutive years. Currently Nantong has 556 construction enterprises, among which 18 are first grade state enterprise with 520 thousand employees. The completed projects have won 32 Luban Reward, the highest quality engineering reward in China, which make s Nantong rank first among regional cities nationwide. In 2003, the construction enterprises within the city were expected to create a value worth RMB45 billion and complete a construction area of 76 million sqm, a 15.7% and 49.1% y-o-y increase respectively.

         Nantong has witnessed a rapid growth in its service industry. The city has more than 700 commodity trade markets, of which 65 enjoy transaction volume worth more than RMB100 million, and 8 surpass 1 billion. The Dieshi Bridge Embroidery Market, Huadong South China Light Textile Market, and Yongxing Construction Material Mall etc. are able to permeate radiate the whole country, with Nantong Wenfeng Great World ranking 10th among the 50 top chain stores nationwide. Nantong is also a transshipping and distribution center for important materials and imported products such as chemicals, finished edible oil, liquefied gas, bulk cargo, grains, feed, and cotton, etc. A regional trade logistics center has begun to take shape.