Photo shows the Guangdong High Tech Service Zone for Financial Institutions located at scenic Qiandenghu Lake. Photos Provided to China Daily

Using the city's thriving manufacturing sector as a springboard, local leaders hope to grow Foshan into a leading manufacturing hub in southern China's Guangdong province.

The city seeks investments to build, supplement and fortify its industrial chains in order to adjust and upgrade its industrial structure.

"We seek faster and stronger development in the manufacturing of flat-panel displays, automobiles, semi-conductor lighting, new-generation information technology, alternative energy, bio-medicine, equipment manufacturing, household appliances and new materials in the coming three years," said Zhou Zhitong, director general of the Foshan Foreign Trade and Economic Co-operation Bureau.

"They are expected to churn out 1 billion yuan ($158 million) worth of industrial output by 2015, the last year of the nation's 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015)."

The official said that the city government has set concrete targets for each of the subsequent three years, and the target set for this year is to secure a couple of investment projects involving strategic growth industries to make way for new industrial chains.

The city will highlight investments related to next-generation information technology, alternative energy and bio-medicine to enable related strategic growth industrial chains to take shape in 2013.

In the meantime, Foshan seeks projects to supplement and fortify its existing industrial chains.

The industrial output target for 2014 is 70 billion yuan from each of the new industrial chains. The city also expects 100 billion yuan from the industrial chains that are to be supplemented and a 50 percent growth of total industrial output over 2010 levels from each of the traditional industrial chains that would have been fortified with new investments.

According to the official, industrial chains to be supplemented primarily refer to flat-panel displays, automobile manufacturing and semi-conductor lighting. The new industrial chains include next-generation information technology, alternative energy and bio-medicine. The traditional industrial chains that are to be fortified are equipment manufacturing, household appliance production and new materials.

Flat-panel display

The city hopes to lure at least a couple of R&D facilities and two terminal manufacturing centers to commercialize new types of monitors developed by companies like Tawain-based Chi-Mei Corp and domestic manufacturers Rainbow (Foshan) Flat-Panel Display Co Ltd and Guangdong Sinodisplay Technology Co Ltd.

Foshan plans to make the National (Foshan) Monitor Industrial Park a world-class LED display production base for supplying state-of-the-art TFT-LCD (thin-film transistor-liquid crystal display) panel production lines, terminal display products and supporting industries.

Auto manufacturing

Building on the success of Sino-German joint venture FAW-Volkswagen's sedan project, Foshan hopes to maintain its momentum in the industry by attracting at least one automotive design company and 10 world-renowned precision auto parts companies.

Semiconductor lighting

The city will accelerate the research and development of light-emitting diode (LED) chips and appliances as well as organic LED (OLED)- and LED-packaging technology to form a complete industrial chain from chips to packaging and application.

Industrial giants the city aims to attract include the Japanese Toyoda Gosei Company, South Korean Samsung Semiconductor and domestic Sanan Optoelectronics

New-generation information technology

Domestic industrial leaders, including Inspur, Lenovo, and Digital China, are being called upon to develop servers, memory devices, system integration, information services, data center operations and public service platforms.

The city is trying to enlist the help of US-based Freescale as well as domestics firms Datang Telecom Technology and ZTE Corp to develop sensors, radio frequency identification (RFID) chips, related embedded software, middleware application software and solutions.

Foshan also plans to persuade China Satellite Communications and Beijing BDStar Navigation to invest here to develop a space-based geographical information application using global positioning and geographic information systems.

Alternative energy

The city will approach industry leaders at home and abroad to develop highly efficient and high-quality batteries and components, and photovoltaic accessories. Foshan is also seeking partners to design, develop, assemble and maintain wind power facilities and related components. These companies include US-based General Electric, Danish Vestas Wind Systems, the German Schott Group and the domestic Goldwind Science & Technology Company.

Bio-medicine

The city also plans to attract investments from leading medicine suppliers, such as Switzerland's Novartis, the French Sanofi Pasteur and the Chinese Hualan Biological Engineering Corporation for deep processing of active pharmaceutical ingredients, pharmaceutical R&D, gene testing, modernization of traditional Chinese medicine and industrialization of biomedicines.

Equipment manufacturing

Foshan will step up the development of whole sets of engineering machinery. The city will strengthen the development of machinery for making porcelain, electrical machinery, machinery for processing metal and plastics, printing and packaging machines, as well as hoisting and transport equipment and moulds. Its target firms include the US-based Caterpillar Company, as well as Chinese firms like Shenyang Machine Tool, Changsha Zoomlion Heavy Industry Science & Technology Development, Guangxi Liugong Machinery and XCMG.

Household appliance

The city will encourage and support its household appliance suppliers, several of which have in fact become well known nationwide and even worldwide, such as Midea, Glanz and Chigo. It will help them push their competitive edge using high technology to make the industry digital, intelligent, green and integrated with the network.

New material

Foshan hopes to draw the world's top 500 companies in biopharmaceutical materials, nanomaterials, superconductive materials and composite materials to make the existing industrial chain more dynamic and profitable.

zhanlisheng@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 03/09/2012 page12)