Chengdu nears 'fully developed' phase

Preferential policies for professionals, redistribution of living, manufacturing areas address uneven growth

City functions and industrial support are key for Chengdu to establish itself as a national hub city, local officials said.

An industrial development conference that discussed the nature of such a city was held in Chengdu, capital of Southwest China's Sichuan province, earlier this month.

The city put forward a package of new policies involving the supply of resources to support innovation and fostering the industrial ecosystem.

Zhou Degui, secretary-general at the Chengdu federation of industrial economics, said that the decreasing proportion of Chengdu's manufacturing industry in the local economy in recent years was not caused by problems within the local industry, but because the service sector has grown rapidly.

Industrial development provides important impetus for Chengdu's economy, and how to make industry grow faster and improve is a key for Chengdu to develop into a national hub city, Zhou said.

Chengdu's development into an economic hub in western China must place advanced manufacturing in the leading role and expedite the industrialization process, local officials said.

The city will work to make advanced manufacturing account for more than half of its industrial sector by the end of 2022, they added.

Chengdu will mainly support the improvement of five pillar sectors - electronic information, automobile making, food and beverage, equipment manufacturing and biological medicine.

Zhou said: "Chengdu's industrial sector is continuously increasing and its proportion in GDP is expected to surpass 50 percent, the dividing line, within the next few years."

Local officials said the city will emerge as a center of economy, science and technology, finance, foreign relations and cultural creativity in western China and an international comprehensive transportation hub.

The city will build professionally financial intermediary service systems and will encourage the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges to establish their western centers in Chengdu. The Tianfu (Sichuan) United Equity Exchange will also be improved, they said.

The city's Party congress held in April proposed adjusting Chengdu's economic map and emphasized the importance of development in the city's eastern area.

The congress said it is necessary to keep in mind development goals for 50 years and even 100 years and promote the shift of advanced manufacturing and production services to the eastern area.

Chengdu will undertake industrial development planning and urban planning together as one whole, according to methods of integrating industries, cities and people. Based on these, it will plan 66 industrial areas.

Chengdu will also expedite planning and construction of innovative parks based on the Tianfu science city, the Chengdu medical science city, the Chengdu Hi-Tech Industrial Development Zone and the Chengdu pilot free trade zone.

It will fully use Sino-France and Sino-Germany industrial cooperation platforms and integrate innovation and entrepreneurship centers and incubation centers to build several park brands that have market influence.

According to the 50 new industrial policies released by Chengdu, entrepreneurs are encouraged to use universities', colleges' and research institutes' resources, such as technology and professionals, to innovate and start up businesses.

The city will prepare to build an innovation and creation research institute and encourage schools and enterprises to build new industrial technology research organizations. Chengdu will provide maximum support of 200 million yuan ($29.6 million).

Local governments will provide a maximum subsidy of 10 million yuan to industrial clusters and industrial chain collaborative innovation projects.

The city hopes to build more than five manufacturing innovation centers that are nationally influential.

Chengdu will set up a special department to promote the development of its "new economy". It follows closely the latest developments in the science and technology industry. It also develops industries of the future such as artificial intelligence, precision medicine, virtual reality, sensing and controlling.

It supports the companies to build cross-industry integration platforms to drive the new technologies, emerging industries and new business models.

Excellent professionals are the leading force behind urban development. The new policies reveal Chengdu will strengthen stimulation of such professionals and offer a maximum comprehensive subsidy of 100 million yuan to internationally qualified experts and teams that innovate and start up companies in the city.

Chengdu carried out a policy on July 19 to attract professionals and to help them work and live in the city.

Peng Chongshi, deputy head of the organization department of the Chengdu Committee of the Communist Party of China, said: "Young college students are new blood for cities' development. We will maintain a more open and inclusive attitude to encourage the students to take root in Chengdu."

According to Peng, Chengdu will establish a system through which graduates with a bachelor's degree or higher can be granted hukou - or local household registration - via their graduation certificates. It is for encouraging young professionals to start up businesses and work in Chengdu.

As for job candidates from other regions who are also the current year's graduates with a bachelor's degree or higher, the city will provide them with free accommodation for a maximum of seven days in stations for young professionals.

The city's first 13 such stations were launched on July 7 and began to offer accommodation on July 15.

Chengdu also announced it would put more effort into building apartments, developing rental housing for experts and providing related guarantees to excellent, badly needed professionals.

songmengxing@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 07/20/2017 page12)