Incentives bring experts and their business back to China

An industrial park in Mianyang, Southwest China's Sichuan province, has introduced a range of incentives over recent years to attract highly trained experts returning from overseas to start businesses.

The Science and Technology Business Park, founded in August 2001, has launched cooperation agreements with several top-notch research institutions at home and abroad, including Tsinghua University and the University of Cambridge, to transfer its rich scientific resources into real productivity.

In September 2002, the park was named the only national industrial park for the transfer of defense technology to civilian use by the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense and the Ministry of Science and Technology.

In December 2012, it was named a national science and technology base for innovation and entrepreneurship by the ministry.

As the country's only science and technology city approved by the State Council, "Mianyang has been attracting high-end talent in entrepreneurship and innovation, and has been promoting the development of high-tech industries since the first day it was established", said Zhou Yu, Party chief of the park's working committee.

A time-honored city, Mianyang was the birthplace of Li Bai, a great poet of the Tang Dynasty (618-907). After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the city became a crucial military industrial base for the research and development of China's first hydrogen bomb, atomic bomb and satellites.

Li Wei, deputy head of the park's administrative committee, said that Chinese experts returning from overseas study have become the force driving innovation and entrepreneurship in the park.

The park has invested 2 billion yuan ($290 million) in building a low-carbon, high-tech and intelligent innovation center to attract high-end talent from home and abroad. More than 410 science and technology enterprises have set up operations in the center, which generates annual output of 450 million yuan and annual tax revenue of more than 15 million yuan. Of the enterprises, 20 have annual output of more than 10 million yuan, and those with annual output of between 5 million yuan and 10 million yuan exceed 50.

Emerging industries

"The park has paid great attention to the development of high-tech industries and strategic emerging industries," said Li Zhe, deputy Party chief of the park's working committee and head of the park's administrative committee. "The park has boosted development of e-commerce and Internet Plus industries, making it a provincial demonstration base for e-commerce in 2014," Li said.

In April this year, it was named one of China's Top 10 E-commerce Parks at the China International Electronic Commerce Expo.

In the first three quarters of this year, the amount of e-commerce deals in the park reached 21.66 billion yuan, according to the administrative committee of the park. The figure is expected to exceed 55 billion yuan by 2020, and the park will be built into a national demonstration base for e-commerce innovation and entrepreneurship, according to the committee.

Incubator for startups

As a key project of the park, its incubator for startups was launched in cooperation with the University of Cambridge and the EU Project Innovation Center in July last year. The incubator focuses on such industries as electronic information, intelligent manufacturing and cross-border e-commerce. More than 10 high-tech enterprises, including Alibaba's location-based service center, have started operations in the incubator.

Companies in charge of a key industrial project that was launched in the incubator will be granted up to 20 million yuan in subsidies for recruitment and employment, according to the park's regulations. Small and medium-sized science and technology enterprises will be granted a subsidy of up to 1 million yuan, according to the regulations.

The park has also worked out a range of favorable measures, including those related to funding, office space and standard workshops for returnees with certified overseas diplomas and projects launched through the incubator.

Tian Bin, general manager of Mianyang Click Science and Technology Development Co, said he is amazed by the low cost and convenient services of the park. Tian only needs to pay a monthly fee of 300 yuan for an office space of more than 90 square meters, with access to free internet services and a range of work and living facilities. Other services, including legal affairs, finance, funding and venture consulting, are also available.

"We made the right choice to move to the park in May last year," said Liu Xuanmiao, chairman of Mianyang Futianxia E-Commerce Co. The company's annual turnover reached 1.5 billion yuan in just over one year, and its revenue is still rising at a speed of 30 to 50 percent monthly, Liu said.

A total of 328 new technology-based small and medium-sized enterprises were set up in the park during the first 10 months of this year thanks to incentive policies.

Li Ji, cofounder of AUSTEEN, a manufacturer of advanced reducers for robots, spoke highly of the park's industrial resources, talent policies and environment for innovation.

Li, who returned to China after studying in Germany for several years, said that his enterprise is expected to go public in three years and its annual output then is expected to reach up to 50 million yuan.

For more information, please contact Chen Qinyan at Mianyang Science and Technology Business Park's innovation service center: 0086-816-633-7279, or 0086-180-1162-1101.

dongjidong@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 12/07/2016 page15)