Local govt releases ambitious 10-year plan to spur development

After 25 years of development, the Xi'an High-tech Industrial Development Zone has become the most popular cradle of startups in western China, attracting attention from both domestic and foreign investors.

The Chinese government has been encouraging entrepreneurship and innovation in recent years, which gives the high-tech zone opportunities to become a world-class scientific technology park in the future, local officials said.

The local government aims to build the zone into an innovation hub with strong international competitiveness in the next 10 years.

The authority of the high-tech zone has announced a plan that focuses on developing the zone into a national-level self-innovation demonstration locale from 2016 to 2025.

The zone is expected to realize annual revenue of 5 trillion yuan ($759 billion) by the end of 2025, according to the plan. The figure was 1.2 trillion yuan in 2015.

By then, the zone hopes to have a complete industrial chain for startups with a full range of services and rich human resources, capital and markets. The number of national-level incubators is expected to surpass 35 in the zone.

In terms of industrial structure, emerging industries such as information technology and advanced manufacturing will become major contributors in the zone. Strategic emerging industries such as those listed are expected to account for more than 40 percent of the zone's industrial added value.

The Belt and Road Initiative has helped the zone participate increasingly in the global economy, which will lead to growth in international trading between the zone and foreign markets in the next 10 years, a representative of the zone said.

By the end of 2025, the zone is expected to realize $100 billion in annual foreign trade, more than quadrupling $22 billion in 2015. About 200 Fortune 500 companies are forecast to invest in such facilities as offices, manufacturing centers or innovation centers in the zone.

Meanwhile, a large number of local startups are growing and developing. The representative predicted that the zone would have around 80,000 high-tech companies and more than 200 companies with global influence by 2025.

Currently, the zone is home to more than 40,000 enterprises and more than 80 percent of them are high-tech companies.

Investment in research and development is expected to average more than 8 percent of companies' total investment by that time.

To realize the goals above, the zone has introduced policies to attract domestic and foreign personnel.

The local government has provided preferential policies to encourage scientific research professionals to start up businesses.

The zone would continue to improve living conditions for personnel in both infrastructure and services, and aims to become a talents center in western China, local officials said.

In the financial sector, the zone would improve the investment environment by giving more choices and services for angel investors, officials said. It plans to establish a fund specifically to commercialize research results.

The zone also plans to become a financial center for technology companies based on the country's Belt and Road Initiative.

In addition to the 10-year plan, the zone authority has a further goal to cultivate industries that can be at the top of the world's high-end value chain by creating an advanced development mode, system and culture, which will help the zone become an influential global innovation center.

(China Daily 06/14/2016 page10)