An artistic rendering of OVC filled with cherry blossoms. [Photo/Optics Valley of China]

The concept "Optics Valley of the World" was first put forward by the government of the East Lake High-tech Development Zone (also known as Optics Valley of China, or OVC) in 2017. Since then, making OVC internationally influential has been a goal of everybody in the valley.

Over the past five years, OVC continues to improve its overall strength and soft power, ranking highly in the province in both development speed and quality.

The valley only occupies 0.0028 percent of Hubei's total land area but contributes 4.8 percent of its GDP. About one-third of the province's listed companies and 30 percent of its high-tech firms are based in OVC, which also boasts the world's largest output of optical fiber preforms, optical fibers, and optical cables.

OVC has an average daily GDP of 658 million yuan ($97.98 million), an average of 78 new enterprises begin operating there every day, and it hires an average of 307 college graduates and 131 talents outside Wuhan every day.

To make the valley a better place to work and live, the government has initiated a series of major public infrastructure projects, including the construction of libraries, art galleries, music halls and theaters.

By 2021, the number of national high-tech companies in OVC had reached 4,300, and it boasts five provincial-level key laboratories and 45 State-level R&D platforms. OVC's R&D intensity stood at 8.7 percent last year, and it had more than 41,000 effective patents, with an average year-on-year increase of 23 percent from 2017 to 2021. Over 6,000 of its PCT patent applications have been approved, ranking second in China.

The valley is home to 160,000 market entities, 53 listed firms, 533 enterprises above a designated size, and 85 companies with more than 100 million yuan in exports.