City's eight engines of growth

China Daily | Updated: 2016-06-25 07:41

AVIATION AND AEROSPACE

Driven by cutting-edge technologies and both domestic and foreign investment, Tianjin's aviation and aerospace industry has seen rapid growth in the past five years. In 2015, the industry's output value reached 44.7 billion yuan ($6.8 billion), growing 34.4 percent from 2014 - the highest growth rate among the top eight industries in Tianjin. The industry has a complete value chain for the research and development, production and trade of products, which range from civil airplanes, helicopters and unmanned aircraft to rockets and space stations. The city is capable of producing 44 A320s, 70 helicopters and 200 unmanned aircrafts per year.

In the first four months of this year, Tianjin's aerospace industry has developed rapidly, with total output value reaching 16.54 billion yuan, an increase of 26.3 percent from the same period of last year. The growth rate ranks first among the city's eight pillar industries.

So far, the Airbus A330 assembly and delivery center project has already begun construction. It is predicted that the first Tianjin-made A330 aircraft will be delivered to the client in 2017. The project will make Tianjin the fourth-largest aircraft production base in the world after Toulouse in France, Hamburg in Germany and Seattle in the United States.

PETROCHEMICALS

As one of Tianjin's traditional economic pillars, the industry features a complete value chain from petroleum exploration and recovery, refining and ethylene production to the manufacturing of various petrochemical end products. The industry produced 294.5 billion yuan worth of products in 2015, accounting for 11.8 percent of the total output value of the city's top eight industries. The industry's strength makes Tianjin a nationally renowned petrochemical base. Tianjin Binhai New Area is the major destination for the industry. It is designed to be a world-class petrochemical industrial base with the support of two modern harbors. Following the completion of several large-scale refining and ethylene projects, it is estimated that Binhai's petrochemical industry will have an output value of 800 billion yuan by 2020.

According to the local industrial plan, Binhai New Area aims to become a world-class resource-saving and environmental-friendly petrochemical industry base. The Nangang Industrial Zone is the major base for the petrochemical industry in Binhai and even in Tianjin. The nearby harbors in the North district and Nangang district offer crucial support to the industry. With a focus on oil refining and ethylene production, the Nangang zone has formed a complete industrial chain covering chemical raw materials, fine chemicals and other downstream sectors.

MANUFACTURING

Manufacturing is the leading industry in Tianjin, and in 2015, the sector produced products worth 1.14 trillion yuan, accounting for 45.5 percent of the total production value of the city's top eight industries. The output from the metallurgy sector was 642.7 billion yuan, accounting for one-fourth of the total output of Tianjin's top eight industries. Machine building and automobiles are the city's two other major sectors, with output values in 2015 reaching 261.9 billion yuan and 234.3 billion yuan respectively. In the first four months of this year, the city's auto industry output value reached 84.38 billion yuan, growing 12.4 percent from a year ago. The machinery industry output value reached 101.59 biliion yuan.

Tianjin is currently home to the operations of a number of the world's leading manufacturers such as John Deere, Otis, Honeywell, Schneider and Alstom. Companies including Otis, SEW have their China headquarters in Binhai New Area. Driven by high-quality projects and leading enterprises, Binhai's manufacturing industry has expanded to cover such sectors as marine engineering equipment, seawater desalination equipment, large-sized construction machines, petroleum drilling equipment and rail transportation equipment, as well as new-energy equipment for wind power, and hydraulic power generation.

ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION

The industry, which mainly focuses on producing smartphones and manufacturing chips, is one of the important engines driving Tianjin's economic growth. The output of the industry amounted to 334.9 billion yuan in 2015, up 14.7 percent from a year ago. Binhai New Area has attracted the majority of the city's electronics and information technology companies, with nearly 80 percent of such enterprises located in the area. According to Binhai's electronics and information technology development plan for 2011-20, the industry will be further expanded to cover such sectors as mobile internet, cloud computing, new-type displays, LED, electronic components and the internet of things, with output value predicted to reach 650 billion yuan by 2020.

The electronic and information industry in Binhai also has outstanding advantages in areas of computer manufacturing, communications terminal equipment manufacturing and video recording equipment manufacturing. Driven by the fast growth of petrochemical and new materials industries, the electronic materials and components sector have also shown great potential in Binhai New Area.

BIOMEDICINES

Based on its strong research and development capacity and effective transfer of technologies, Tianjin's biomedicine industry has grown into a competitive sector. In 2015, the industry's output amounted to 134.2 billion yuan, increasing 25.7 percent from a year ago. In the first four months of this year, the industry's output amounted to 53.13 billion yuan, increasing 15.2 percent from the same period last year. According to a local industrial development plan, the sector's output value is estimated at 180 billion yuan in 2017, making Tianjin one of the leading biomedicine bases in China. The city's authorities also plan to expand the industry into a large healthcare industry to cover such fields as medical equipment, biological technologies and traditional Chinese medicine. As the core area for developing biomedicine industry in Tianjin and even the Bohai-rim region, Tianjin Economic-Technological Development Area has attracted the world's leading pharmaceutical companies, such as Novonordisk, Novozymes and Eli Lilly. Local companies like Kailaiying and Shiner have also show great potential for growth. The area has formed a bio-pharmaceutical industry chain focusing on product development, technology transfer, manufacturing and logistics.

NEW ENERGY AND NEW MATERIALS

The new energy and new materials industries are emerging sectors that can meet people's changing demands and adhere to the principle of sustainable development. The industries in Tianjin have been on a fast track of growth in recent years, with its output amounting to 131.3 billion yuan in 2015, up 13.5 percent from the previous year.

In Binhai New Area, the industry has maintained an annual growth rate of between 30 to 40 percent, demonstrating the most outstanding local development potential. The total number of new-energy enterprises has reached more than 60 in Tianjin High-Tech Zone - a part of Binhai New Area. There are many leading companies with global influence such as Siemens and Mingyang Wind Power. In addition, Lishen Battery is the country's second-largest battery manufacturer and Yingli Solar Guoneng is a major new-energy vehicle producer in the city. Local planners expect Binhai's output value in the new energy and related energy-saving sectors will reach 100 billion yuan by 2020.

In the first four months of this year, the new materials industry's output in Tianjin amounted to 67.63 billion yuan, increasing 8.9 percent from the same period last year.

TEXTILES AND LIGHT INDUSTRIES

The textiles industry has been revitalized and enjoyed rapid growth in recent years thanks to increasing consumer demand. Its scale among Tianjin's top eight industries jumped from fourth place in 2010 to second in 2015. The industry produced 427.9 billion yuan worth of products last year, growing 20.5 percent from the previous year. In the first four months of this year, the industry grew at a year-on-year rate of 15.4 percent to reach 141.6 billion yuan. In the future, the industry will focus on developing synthetic fibers and other chemical fiber products, expanding their application to a wide range of fields including aerospace, healthcare, construction, automobile, environmental protection, new energy and fishery.

In the field of light industry, driven by internet-plus and foreign trade, the city's traditionally advantageous products such as furniture, musical instruments, carpet and bicycles have seen rapid growth in production and sales in recent years. In Binhai New Area, the light industry will produce 80 billion yuan worth of products by 2020, according to the local development plan.

NATIONAL DEFENSE-RELATED SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Tianjin currently has 10 important platforms for defense-related research and development and 10 industrial bases for transferring military technologies into civil use. For instance, the Civil-Military Integration Innovation Research Institute was founded in 2013 in Binhai New Area, which offers an incubation platform for new products and new technology transfer. A number of cutting-edge technology projects such as domestic CPU development and industrialization, Beidou satellite navigation technology application and industrialization, underwater observation and monitoring will have military-civil transfer operations in Binhai New Area.

In early May this year, a Long March 7 carrier rocket departed from the Tianjin Port and arrived at a launch base in South China's Hainan province nearly a week later. This is the first carrier rocket assembled and delivered by the Tianjin Big Carrier Rocket General Assembly Base. The Long March 7 is one of the latest generation of rockets in China, which will be able to carry cargo spacecraft for China's future space station program. The Tianjin Big Carrier Rocket General Assembly Base is currently assembling the Long March 5 - another new-generation large carrier rocket, which is scheduled to be launched for the first time in the second half of this year.