Industrial partnership parks given push at national level

Panda Rongrong was delighted to see a number of deputies and members of the country’s Two Sessions express their recognition on the international industrial cooperation parks in Chengdu last month. Amid the nation’s call to boost innovation and start-ups among the mass public, the parks indicate that Chengdu’s international collaboration has risen to a new high, and also represent the city’s accelerated opening-up and innovative approaches.

Top: The Dongfeng Peugeot Citroen Automobile Co. Ltd.’s fourth plant in China is located at the Sino-French Ecological Park in Chengdu. Above: A design sketch shows a corner of the Singapore-Sichuan High-tech Innovation Park in the Tianfu New Area. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Some of the deputies of the National People’s Congress and members of Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference suggested incorporating support for the Sino-South Korean Innovation Park into the country’s 13th Five- Year Plan (2016-20), and to further accelerate the opening-up of western China by pushing forward the construction of other Sino-foreign cooperative industrial parks.

The suggestion was made in line with Premier Li Keqiang’s emphasis in the 2016 Government Work Report on creating new models of China’s opening-up for inland and border areas, developing new overseas-oriented industrial clusters and encouraging more overseas investment in the central and western regions.

During a visit to South Korea in October 2015, Li and South Korean President Park Geun-hye agreed that the two countries would increase cooperation in innovation, intelligent manufacturing and research and development in high-end technology and set up a China-South Korea Innovation and Entrepreneurship Park in Chengdu.

Located in the Chengdu High-tech Industrial Development Zone, the park is likely to include an innovation venture incubation platform and an industrial park.

It aims to become a landmark project with a global reputation through the collaboration between China’s mass entrepreneurship and innovation and South Korea’s creative economy.

Welding takes place at Dongfeng Peugeot Citroen Automobile Co. Ltd.’s fourth plant in China at the Sino-French Ecological Park.

Intl co-op parks on fast track

As a gateway for China’s westward opening-up and a major hub along the Silk Road Economic Belt, Chengdu has greatly expanded its cooperation with European countries and accelerated its opening-up.

The city is home to the Sino-French Ecological Park and the Sino-German Small and Medium-sized Enterprise Cooperation Park.

The Sino-French Ecological Park is a national-level project the two countries set up in 2014. It is located in the State-level Chengdu Economic and Technological Development Zone, also known as CEDZ, in the eastern part of Chengdu, and covers a preliminary planning area of 8.6 square miles.

“The park focuses on strategic emerging industries such as energy saving and environmental protection, new-energy, new-materials and highend equipment manufacturing,” said Zhou Ling, director of the coordination office of the Sino- French Ecological Park.

Dongfeng Peugeot Citroen Automobile, a joint venture of French carmaker PS A Peugeot Citroen and Chinese automaker Dongfeng Motor Corp., chose the park as the location of its fourth factory in China with investment of 12.3 billion yuan ($1.9 billion).

Thanks to efficient government services, the factory broke ground only three months after the agreement was signed in July 2014, and it is expected to go into commercial operation this year.

The factory has a planned production capacity of 360,000 automobiles a year.

The CEDZ is expected to produce more than 1 million cars annually this year.

The project is also expected to stimulate the growth of the automobile industry chain in the CEDZ. “More carmakers and auto parts enterprises are coming after Dongfeng Peugeot Citroen Automobile, including the Francebased Faurecia, Dongfeng Motor Die and Mould Co. Ltd. and Fengshen Logistics,” Zhou said.

He said the park is negotiating with leading French companies including PS A Peugeot Citroen, Renault and Bollore for cooperation in the fields of new-energy vehicles and smart cars.

The park also wants to work closely with French and European Union companies in the fields of ecological construction, energy saving and environmental protection.

“Our goal is to build the park into a model project of green and lowcarbon development among Sino- French cooperation,” Zhou said.

The park has planned ecological belts and parks, a stormwater system and a greenway system to create a good ecological environment. The construction of the park widely uses green technology, and it will promote the use of clean energy and energyefficient vehicles.

The park is also building a platform for cultural exchanges between China and France. A French-style street and a series of projects covering culture, art, creative design, catering and tourism are under construction.

Established the same year as the Sino-French Ecological Park, the Sino-German SME Cooperation Park in Pujiang county in southwestern Chengdu has an overall planned area of 11.5 square miles.

The park, the first of its kind in western China, is seen as one of the most important ways for Chengdu to integrate into the Belt and Road Initiative.

So far, it has attracted 48 companies that engage in precision machines and related industries, including Bosch Power Tools and Bosch Packaging Technology. The Bosch Group has also set up its first Asia-Pacific R&D center for packaging technology in the park, according to Mao Yongjiu, director of the general management department of Pujiang Industrial Zone Administrative Committee.

The Chengdu plants of Bosch Power Tools and Bosch Packaging Technology have seized market share in China, and some of the products are exported to the United States, Japan and Germany.

“Through the introduction of German technology, professionals and management experience, we have greatly improved our level in the hardware industry,” Mao said.

The official said the park plans to bring in 100 more enterprises by 2020, generating a total output value of 35 billion yuan.

Under the framework of the Sino- Cuba cooperation in biotechnology, the city is building a Chengdu International Bio-tech Industry Town.

On March 14, the Chengdu Hightech Zone signed an agreement with Chengdu’s Shuangliu district to jointly build the Chengdu International Bio-tech Industry Town, which aims to be an industrial park with global influence.

According to the plans, it will focus on biomedicine and biomedical engineering, and cover an area of 17.4 square miles.

Provincial-level collaboration

Apart from the national-level cooperative industrial parks, Chengdu is also home to three provincial-level cooperative parks: the Nordrhein-Westfalen Center, the Sichuan-France Ecological and Technological Park, and the Singapore-Sichuan High-tech Innovation Park.

In April 2014, the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia launched a major investment project, valued at 2 billion yuan, in the Chengdu part of Tianfu New Area, China’s 11th national-level development area approved by the State Council in October 2014.

It will become the headquarters for German enterprises in western China and serve as a major platform for economic and cultural exchanges between Germany and western China.

“Our collaboration with Sichuan was mainly in agriculture 10 years ago, but now it has expanded to hightech fields,” said Hannelore Kraft, governor of North Rhine-Westphalia, during her visit to Chengdu in April 2015 for the establishment of the NRW Center.

Kraft said both North Rhine-Westphalia and Sichuan province are faced with the challenges of industrial transformation and upgrading, and she looks forward to working with Sichuan toward Industry 4.0 via close bilateral cooperation.

Next to the NRW Center is the site of the Sichuan-France Ecological and Technological Park. A joint project of the French region of Champagne- Ardenne and Sichuan province, the park will focus on architecture, urban planning, and energy-efficiency in buildings. Construction is expected to start this year.

“The speed of construction of the Tianfu New Area is amazing,” said Olivier Vaysset, French consul general in Chengdu, when he visited the Chengdu part of the new area in February, together with consular officers from 15 consulates-general in southwestern China.

Vaysset said he is paying close attention to the construction of the Sichuan-France Ecological and Technological Park and is willing to promote more collaboration between the two sides. Other consular officers are also seeking cooperation opportunities for their own countries.

The Singapore-Sichuan High-tech Innovation Park, jointly developed by Singapore and the Sichuan provincial government, is planned to cover 4 square miles and is expected to attract total investment of 100 billion yuan from 2012 to 2020.

The park focuses on five pillar industries — biomedical sciences, interactive digital media, high-end manufacturing and assembly, environmental technologies and producer services.

“Chengdu will take advantage of the Sino-Foreign cooperative industrial parks to deepen openingup and expand international cooperation, and thus establish itself as an international hub in the region and play a larger role in the global industrial system,” local officials said.