The Zhongguancun Business Initiation Center [Photo provided to China Daily]

Fruitful achievements

After decades of development, Zhongguancun is renowned around the world for its technological success and innovative products.

The zone was the birthplace of technologies used in the Dawning Supercomputer, the Shenzhou VII spacecraft, the Chang'e I lunar orbiter, low temperature nuclear heating reactors and high-temperature gas-cooled reactors.

The park's membrane bioreactor has caught up to the world level, and its other technologies, like smart phone operating systems and TD-LTE chips are nearing an advanced level compared to their global counterparts.

All these domestically developed products and technology have helped to bolster China's major projects.

In 2011, the number of submitted patent applications in Haidian, the Beijing district that houses the park, for the first time surpassed 30,000, reaching 32,412 and accounting for 41.6 percent of Beijing's total, a 30.3 percent annual increase.

The zone has won recognition from the government for its many technological achievements. More than 90 institutions or individuals from the park received China's highest science and technology prizes, accounting for 30.5 percent of the country's total.

With ongoing product innovation and improvements, enterprises in the park have also raised the bar by developing new industrial standards, of which 66 have become internationally applied, and more than 590 were used as national standards. For example, TD-SCDMA and TD-LTE-Advanced have become global 3G and 4G standards, respectively.

All these aspects have helped encourage a boom of technological trade. The core area has had its technological trade grow by 35.5 percent annually from 2005 to 2010 while its proportion of the country's total increased from 12.79 percent to 23.2 percent.

The highly competitive electronic and information industry in the park has seen its revenue increase from 172.7 billion yuan to 436.9 billion yuan during the same period.

By the end of the 11th Five- Year Plan period (2006-2010), the economy of the core area of Zhongguancun had expanded considerably, with gross revenue surpassing 705.2 billion yuan, 2.8 times the figure at the end of the previous 10th Five-Year Plan period (2005-2009). In 2011, the revenue continued to grow to 877 billion yuan.

Now the zone is home to 4,142 national high-tech enterprises, accounting for 60 percent of those in Beijing and one-tenth of the country's total. It is developing into a science and technology center with growing global influence.

By 2020, revenue of the zone is expected to exceed 4 trillion yuan, while its energy consumption per unit of GDP will be reduced by 40 percent of 2010 levels.