Guangzhou’s “No.1 district” in terms of economic development takes a lead to enter the Innovation 2.0 era, and “Talents’ Harbor” opens as an innovation and business launch platform

 

Serving characteristic talents

 

Among the three components of the “golden triangle” of Guangzhou, one is the Internet Innovation Cluster in Pazhou, and the other two, namely Zhujiang New Town and Guangzhou International Finance City, are both located in Tianhe District.

 

As the “No.1 district” of Guangzhou in terms of economic development, Tianhe District maintained a local GDP growth of above 8% in the first three quarters of this year. The local GDP reached RMB265.3 billion, up 8.7% year-on-year. Tianhe District does not rank first in terms of area or population. It is the driving power of innovation that supports a good and fast economic development of the district.

 

At the Fifth Plenary Session of the 18^th CPC Central Committee, five basic development concepts were brought forward, namely “innovation, coordination, green, opening-up and sharing”. Of these concepts, innovation is placed at the core position for the national overall development. At the Fifth Plenary Session of the 11^th CPC Guangdong Committee, it was proposed that Guangdong should center on two major tasks to build the Pearl River Delta National Independent Innovation Demonstration Zone and launch the Pilot Project for Comprehensive Innovation and Reform Experiment as well as the goal to build an innovative Guangdong to promote the construction of a leading province in innovation-driven development. Under the project of the Pearl River Delta National Independent Innovation Demonstration Zone planned by the CPC Guangdong Committee and the People’s Government of Guangdong, Guangzhou is positioned as “a leader in innovative development”. Therefore, it should play a leading role in this field.

 

Today, when China has entered the Innovation 2.0 era, as the “No.1 district” of China’s “No.3 city” in terms of economic development, Tianhe District has taken a lead in innovation and business launch.

 

Four major advantages

 

Creation of extremely convenient conditions for business launch

 

It was learnt that, 70% of financial institutions, one fourth of headquarters enterprises and a great number of business organizations of Guangzhou, including the branches of four giant accounting firms in the world, concentrate in Tianhe CBD. A total of 140 Fortune 500 enterprises have established 184 project organizations in it. Relying on these resources, Tianhe CBD is not only a district with the most densely concentrated headquarters businesses, but also a capital center.

 

Actually, Tianhe District has obtained four major advantages as a technical center, a capital center, a talent center and a service center.

 

The South China Human Resource Center and other top-class domestic and foreign human resource organizations concentrate in Tianhe District. The Wushan Sub-district with a great number of universities and colleges provides a powerful think tank. Tianhe Administration Center, which is an examination and approval platform based on Cloud computing technology, has been put into operation to provide administrative services through a new mode featuring “one-door acceptance and concentrated examination and approval”. Great efforts have been made to promote business registration reform, and a market-oriented, internationalized and law-based operation environment has been created.

 

All of those mentioned above enable Tianhe District to create extremely convenient conditions for business launch. Companies engaged in smart technologies, represented by PCI Group, are emerging. They share the market relying on innovative technologies and are ambitious to enter the international market.

 

Innovation as a driving force

 

Three listed companies from one building

 

In the Guangzhou Tianhe Software Park behind the bustling Tianhe Business Circle, there is a building named PCI International Building at No.50 Jianzhong Road, Tianhe District. There is no fashionable appearance as that of various incubators, which are popular nowadays. It even seems a little bit “old”. However, it is the home of three listed companies, including PCI S&T, ECS and YY, which has been listed at NASDAQ.

 

“UC, 4399 and Innovalley were our clients,” said Li Xu, general manager of PCI Assembly S&T Business Incubator Co., Ltd (hereinafter referred to PCI Assembly). Different from other newly established incubation bases, PCI Assembly is mainly concentrated with innovative enterprises with basically mature development and certain strength in the industries they are engaged in.

 

Why is PCI Assembly so hot? “First, it benefits from the advantaged location of the park. Tianhe District has made efforts in this field even before the national government brought forward the concepts of “innovation and business launch”. So far, the district has created a kind of atmosphere with strong absorption ability. Then, it should be due to our background with a science and technology company, which enables us to understand the demands of such kind of enterprises and know how to provide the best services for them.”

 

EHANG, which is a representative of innovative enterprises engaged in science and technology development, also chose to set up its headquarters in Tianhe District. Related responsible person from EHANG said, “EHANG chose to base in Tianhe District at the very beginning of its establishment. There are good atmosphere for innovation and business launch. The local government provides strong support for the SMEs through rent subsidy and policies on leading talents and other measures. It helps the enterprises prevent from troubles that may be encountered later and provides reliable policy guarantee.” High-tech enterprises play a leading role in science and technology innovation. To attract various high-end and top-level enterprises, Tianhe District spares no efforts to provide the best services.

 

Zhu Hong, vice president of South China Normal University, said that Tianhe District has naturally endowed advantageous conditions for becoming the core zone of the international science and technology innovation hub of Guangzhou. Based on that, great efforts should be made to promote a good development of headquarters economy and make precise positioning. Then, Tianhe District will be on the path for a sustainable development keeping in line with the characteristics of the resources in the central urban area and the location advantages.

 

Tianhe “Internet Plus” Town

 

Establishment of an “Internet Plus” industrial cluster with output value of more than RMB100 billion

 

Many people know Tianhe Gangding Computer Market. However, few people know that Tianhe District has been building the Tianhe “Internet Plus” Town (hereinafter referred to as Tianhe Town). It is one of China’s most famous clusters of Internet enterprises. Netease, Kingsoft and WeChat all start and have an increasing expansion here. It was in the Tianhe Town where Tencent’s R&D team in Guangzhou promoted WeChat in 2011 under the leadership of Zhang Xiaolong. Now, WeChat has more than 600 million users.

 

Half a year ago, Tianhe “Internet Plus” Town was designated as one of the first “Internet Plus” Towns of Guangdong province. Recently, an invitation for bidding for the project under the development planning has been released on the procurement website of Guangzhou (www.gzg2b.gov.cn). Tianhe District will spend three years to develop the “Internet Plus” Town into one with total output value of more than RMB100 billion and good conditions for both living and business development.

 

In accordance with the planning, Tianhe “Internet Plus” Town will extend from Zhongshan Road on the north to Huangpu Road on the south, and from Tianfu Road on the west to Chebei Road on the east, and Huajing Park on the northwest. It will cover a total area of about 4,800 mu, including a core area of about 926 mu. It will be mainly based on the Tianyuan Sub-district and made part of the Tangxia Sub-district. Its core area will include the Keyun Park and Huajing Park of Guangzhou Tianhe Software Park and the Yangcheng Creative Industrial Park.

 

Actually, the Tianhe “Internet Plus” Town only accounts for less than 5% of the total area of Tianhe District. However, there are more than 400 Internet enterprises in the town, accounting for 20% of those in Tianhe District. In addition, about 80% of leading enterprises engaged in science and technology in Tianhe District concentrate here. There are resources of an integrated upstream and downstream industry chain. So far, Tianhe District has invited a famous planning and design institute to launch pilot projects at Taozhuang and Shipai to design and build an innovative Internet homeland featuring prosperous industrial development and smart and convenient living facilities.

 

“Tianhe District provides good services for new enterprises,” said Xu Feng, from Cepin.com. He gave an example. The leasing contract between his company and the property owner is going to expire this year. The people in charge at the sub-district office have taken initiative to help the company communicate with the property owner so that the company may get the propriety for renewing the contract.

 

“They may not be quite significant services, but they bring warmth to the enterprises,” said Xu Feng. He said that Tianhe District has a “Warmth to Enterprises” program. Under the program, the officials will lead a team to visit the enterprises and ask what they can do to help the enterprises solve problems. If the problems can be solved on site, they will solve them on site. Otherwise, related departments will be designated to follow up the issues.

 

In accordance with the planning of Tianhe District, the “Internet Plus” Town will establish sub-centers for administrative services in three areas to provide more thoughtful services for enterprises. One to three or more government service platforms will be established at the R&D and Innovation Zone of Huajing Park, the Information Harbor Industry Cluster and the Yangcheng Evening News Culture and Creative Zone. These platforms will be integrated through Internet. For example, at the R&D Center in Huajing Park, a small government service center may be established relying on the industrial park of China Unicom.

 

In the coming three years, Tianhe District will strive to build the town into a cluster of Internet industry with output value of more than RMB100 billion and a demonstration zone for innovation and business launch.

 

Innovation carriers

 

The transformation of Shengda Electronic Information Innovation Park is just an epitome of the “GISs in Villages” of Tianhe District. To attract more young people and lower the threshold for business launch, Tianhe District has been continuously promoting the construction of incubators and GISs (Group Innovation Spaces). From January to September, Tianhe District saw 19 more newly identified incubators at municipal level, accounting for 29% of that of Guangzhou, 34 new GISs at municipal level, accounting for 46% of that of Guangzhou, and eight GISs newly put under national management, accounting for 27% of that of Guangzhou. In addition, Tianhe District has explored a unique way for the construction of incubators, namely a way relying on “villages in urban area”.

 

Related person in charge of the Administration of Science & Technology, Industry and Information of Tianhe District said that, the total incubation area of Tianhe District reaches 670,000 square meters, half of which were built by renovating the collectively owned properties in villages. In addition, Tianhe District is planning to spend three or four years to build “GISs in villages” on more than one third of the land. This has been written into the government work report of Tianhe District. In 2017, in addition to giving priority to promote the construction of a number of core carriers, including the Tianhe Smart City and the Tianhe “Internet Plus” Town, Tianhe District will also make research and introduce policies to guide the renovation of collectively owned properties in villages and continuously encourage innovative renovation of low-efficiency and idle collectively owned properties in villages and old factories to build a number of low-price, high-efficiency and creatively designed innovation and business launch carriers in accordance with high standards. Meanwhile, it will accelerate the construction of other carriers, such as the China (Guangdong) Comprehensive Business Incubation (Training) Demonstration Base, and build a community for business launch by young people in every sub-district, aiming to establish a number of benchmark and branded incubators.

 

Focus on talents

 

“1+1+8” policies

 

Construction of a highland for innovation and business launch talents

 

In the era of innovation and business launch, the competition among cities is essentially completion for talents. In accordance with relevant incomplete statistics, there are more than 40,000 talents engaged in the Internet industry in the Tianhe “Internet Plus” Town. More than 80% of them have bachelor’s degree or above. In addition, Tianhe District has more than 80 universities, colleges and technical secondary schools, including South China University of Technology, Ji’nan University, South China Normal University and South China Agricultural University, 44 research institutions, including Guangzhou Institute of Energy Conversion of CAS, and 41 national and provincial key laboratories. How to transform resources of colleges and universities into talent advantage has become a challenge for Tianhe District.

 

It was learnt that, in 2011, Tianhe District adopted the strategy to seek for a strong development of the district relying on talents. So far, a series of “1+ 1+ 8” industry and talent supporting policies have been put into practice to provide support and rewards for high-level talents in the forms of project funds, rent-free offices, loan subsidy, education of children and talent introduction, aiming to attract domestic and international high-level talents to make innovations and launch their own businesses in Tianhe District. The rewards for leading talents in innovation and business launch may be up to RMB5 million. In addition, Tianhe District is also the first district of Guangzhou to put equity investment enterprises and related talents under the coverage of rewards.

 

Liang Zhensheng, director of the Department of Public Affairs of Nine D VR, said that the “1+ 1+ 8” policies of Tianhe District are greatly helpful for newly launched businesses. “Especially for enterprises like us, which are engaged in new industries, these policies are needed to attract more talents.”

 

A low-lying land for business launch

 

Life in excellent urban area with the highest cost performance

 

The surging “innovation and business launch trends” forebode that China is entering a “golden age” for innovation and business launch. Guangzhou is in a new stage for urban development. Under such a circumstance, what should Tianhe District do to become a pacesetter for the construction of the core area of the innovation hub of Guangzhou?

 

Under the new blueprint of Guangzhou with emphasis laid on three hubs and two “networks”, Tianhe District will focus on building the core area of modern services, a leading district in innovation and creativity, a sample district with good ecological conditions for living and a happiness and sharing demonstration district. It will give full play to the role as a pacesetter and leader for the economic and social development of Guangzhou to serve as a main force to support Guangzhou to participate in international competition.

 

The proposal to “draw a beautiful new scroll about Tianhe District with the goal to create good conditions for living and business” has been written into the government work report of Tianhe District in 2016. From the basic completion of the construction of “eight south-north and nine east-west fast roads” to the continuously balanced and improved infrastructure, from the construction of “sponge city” to the upgrading of the greening, and then to the sewage interception for the rivers and the renovation of “villages in urban area”, the appearance of the city has been beautified and the quality of the citizens’ lives have been improved. All of those should be due to the great importance attached by Tianhe District to the improvement of urban quality.

 

In addition, Tianhe District is making great efforts to carry out comprehensive governance relying on network-based development of governance system and smart governance measures, aiming to continuously enhance lean management of services.

 

“We often communicate with innovation and business launch enterprises based in Shenzhen. Shenzhen has a better overall environment than Guangzhou does. However, in terms of regional location, Tianhe District is not inferior to Nanshan District.” Li Xu said that, especially in the recent one or two years, the government of Tianhe District has made great efforts in promoting innovation and business launch, and a great number of enterprises have had a fast development. “We still do not have big enterprises that are as famous as Tencent, but we have many excellent SMEs. Compared with those in Shenzhen, these businesses were mainly started with self-raised funds. Therefore, the enterprises have a very stable development. They will become a force that should not be underestimated for promoting the next-round innovation and business launch.”

 

Data to manifest strength of Tianhe District

 

The local GDP in 2015 reached RMB343.865 billion, up 8.8%, ranking first in Guangzhou for nine consecutive years.

 

By the end of 2015, there had been 35,413 enterprises in the CBD, including 597 with registered capital of more than RMB50 million, and 72 headquarters enterprises identified by the government of Guangzhou, accounting for 22 .5% of the total of Guangzhou.

 

There were totally 121,000 enterprises in the district, 2.3 times as many as that in 2010.

 

Last year, 32,000 enterprises were established, up 4 7%, including 4,576 with registered capital of more than RMB10 million, up 34%, accounting for 36% of the total of Guangzhou.

 

Last year, 11 investment projects of nine Fortune 500 enterprises and nine investment projects of seven China’s Top 500 enterprises were introduced. A total of 93 enterprises in the district were identified as headquarters enterprises by the government of Guangzhou, accounting for 29%.

 

In 2016, 19 municipal incubators were registered, totaling the number of incubators in the district to 47, ranking first in Guangzhou.

 

In 2016, 58 enterprises were listed on the “New Third Board”, totaling the number of such enterprises to 91, accounting for 29% the total of Guangzhou. In addition, 483 enterprises were listed at Guangzhou Equity Exchange, totaling the number of such enterprises to 1,008, accounting for 38% of the total of Guangzhou, ranking first in Guangzhou.

 

In addition, Tianhe District has been ranking first for 10 consecutive years in terms of quantities of applications for patents and granted patents.

 

In addition, Tianhe District has been ranking first for 10 consecutive years in terms of quapt"> 

Source: Translated from Invest Guangzhou