A full-page feature containing two articles of Guangzhou was published on USA Today on March 13, local time. One is titled “Guangzhou takes off at ‘World’s Crossroads’ in transition to China’s ‘Capital of E-commerce’”, and the other “Guangzhou Development District: The Rising Core Area of International Scientific and Technological Innovation Hub”.
Here is the original text of the two articles.
Guangzhou takes off at “World’s Crossroads” in transition to China’s “Capital of E-commerce”
A short video titled "Guangzhou, Flower City in Bloom” made its debut on “the China Screen” at Times Square in New York on Saturday. It was for the first time that Guangzhou, the third largest city of China, was presented at the "World's Crossroads."
In the 30-second video clip, Guangzhou showed the world its blended image of an international city, a high-tech city and an artistic city, through a series of brand-new trademarks, such as the city’s new CBD surrounding the landmark building Canton Tower, the Canton Fair Complex hosting the world’s largest trade fair, the world’s first model of self-driving super sports concept car, etc.
All these demonstrate Guangzhou’s ambition to evolve into “a hub-type network city”, according to a blueprint adopted last August.
As an important bridge to achieve this goal, Guangzhou will inaugurate its office in Silicon Valley on Monday and in Boston on the following day. The two will be the first batch of offices representing Guangzhou overseas, which are designed to strengthen partnership with the United States and Europe in technology cooperation and human talents exchange.
"The offices will connect with the local science and technology institutions, enterprises and government departments of Boston and Silicon Valley. This is a substantive step taken by Guangzhou to become an international hub for scientific and technological innovation. We will improve government services and actively attract capital, intelligence and technology from a global perspective," Cai Chaolin, Vice Mayor of Guangzhou, commented.
Located in the geometric center of Asia-Pacific, Guangzhou is the southern gateway of China and has been one of the most important ports for foreign trade since ancient times. In ancient Rome, the silk shipped from Guangzhou was the most precious goods on the Mediterranean coast. In the past three decades, Guangzhou has grown rapidly as an important shipping center, logistics center and trade center in China. With more than 14 million residents, Guangzhou’s GDP in 2016 reached 1.96 trillion yuan (280 billion U.S. dollars).
More importantly, Guangzhou has formed an all-dimensional, multi-layered and wide-ranging opening pattern, and developed into one of the most open regions enjoying the highest degree of market economy.
According to the 2017 "White Paper" on the Business Environment in China and the 2017 Special Report on the State of Business in South China issued by the American Chamber of Commerce in South China on March 1, up to 48 percent of the respondents are interested in setting up a new office or service shop in Nansha New District, Guangzhou.
From December 6 to 8 this year, Guangzhou will host the 2017 Fortune Global Forum under the theme of "Open and Innovation: Shaping the Global Economy.""Guangzhou is undoubtedly a very beautiful city. Its development momentum is strong. In the 21st century, we are very optimistic about the prospects for the development of Guangzhou, and we are glad that the Fortune Global Forum can be held in Guangzhou," Fortune Editor-in-Chief Alan Murray told reporters.
"Guangzhou is one of the most vibrant and market-minded cities in China," said Harley Seyedin, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in South China and vice chairman of U.S.-China Economic and Trade Policy with the Asia Pacific Council of American Chambers of Commerce (APCAC). It has been scheduled that the 2017 APCAC Asia Pacific Business Summit will be held in April in Guangzhou. The combined annual sales of those companies that have committed to participating in the event have exceeded 600 billion U.S. Dollars.
Nevertheless, Guangzhou does not want to rest content with its past glory of being a commercial center for centuries. Modern technology, represented by the Internet and information technology, is seen as an important starting point for the city to achieve a new round of leapfrog development. Building on its advantages in traditional business and high level of opening, Guangzhou stands out from China’s large and medium-sized cities in pursuit of technology-powered development.
Adopting an open approach to actively engage with the outside world on innovation has been an important part of Guangzhou’s strategy to develop into “a hub-type network city.”
Guangzhou has so far established mechanisms with Belarus, New Zealand, Australia, Britain and Ukraine, among others, for exchange and cooperation in science, technology and innovation, according to Ma Zhengyong, Director General of Guangzhou Science, Technology and Innovation Commission.
In addition to the United States, Guangzhou also plans to set up offices in Israel to promote scientific and technological cooperation.
Fostering a financing environment conducive to the development of technology firms and Internet companies has also provided strong support for Guangzhou to achieve the goal of growing into an international innovation hub. Ma Zhengyong said that Guangzhou has adopted a series of financial policies to promote commercialization of innovation. By building platforms for financing and channeling investments, Guangzhou is expected to provide 300 billion yuan (43.5 billion U.S. dollars)in financing support to tech companies.
E-commerce, cross-border e-commerce in particular, has made remarkable progress in Guangzhou thanks to the alliance of the Internet and traditional business. Chen Jie, Director General of Guangzhou Municipal Commission of Commerce, said that in 2016, the total export and import value of Guangzhou cross-border e-commerce companies reached 2.21 billion U.S. dollars, up 1.2 times; retail sales of online stores reached about 9.5 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 20.7 percent over the previous year. Guangzhou now makes every effort to cut red tape and raise the level of trade facilitation, and is becoming “Capital of China’s E-commerce,” which helps foreign E-commerce companies to expand their share of the vast Chinese market.
"With the improvement of living standards of Chinese residents, the demand for foreign high-quality goods is rising, and competitive products of foreign countries have great potential on the Chinese market. It will not only promote economic and social development in Guangzhou, but also provide more development opportunities for the world by building Guangzhou into a Capital of E-commerce” he said.
Guangzhou Development District: The Rising Core Area of International Scientific and Technological Innovation Hub
This year, at the night of Chinese Lantern festival, the high-tech firework show presented by 1000 UAVs of EHang Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd in Haixinsha Square—the center of Guangzhou district, broke the record of Guinness World Records, and it also turned UAV into a carrier of new forms of art performance.
Apart from formation flight, the first fully automated manned aircraft of low-altitude flight in the world—Ehang 184 also attracted attention from the industry insiders. In the meeting of World Government Summit on February 13th this year, the director of the Urban Roads and Transport Department of Dubai announced that Ehang 184 will be serveed as UAV taxi, and the trail run will be operated in July. This is only the epitome of Guangzhou Development District devoting itself to developing advanced manufacturing and strategic emerging industries and actively building itself into the Pearl River Delta National Independent Innovation Demonstration area and core area of Guangzhou International Science and Technology Innovation hub.
Located in eastern Guangzhou, Guangzhou Development District is seated in the heartland of Guangzhou-Hong Kong and Macao Golden Delta and the Pearl River Delta. It is approved as the first batch of 14 state-level economic and technological development zones. Over the past 30 years, Guangzhou Development District started in a wasteland of banana forest by the side of Pearl River, rapidly developed into the driving force for Guangzhou’s economic development, new engine of Guangdong’s industrial transforming and upgrading, and the new benchmark of the China's reform and opening-up.
Guangzhou Development District (GDD)is approved by the State Council as National Self-Dependent Innovation Demonstration Area in Pearl River Delta, National Regional Innovation and Entrepreneurship Demonstration Base, the only national comprehensive reform pilot of utilizing and protecting intellectual property rights, and the first batch of pilot areas for Sino-EU cooperation and Sino-Israel cooperation. It established Electronic& Telecommunication park, New Materials park, and other 18 state-level industrial bases and parks. GDD also formed three hundred-billion industrial clusters in terms of electronics, automotive and chemical, and four 50-billion industrial clusters in terms of chemical, new materials, food and beverage, metal manufacturing, and bio-medicine; cultivated six innovation oriented industrial clusters including intelligent equipment, new generation of information and technology, flat panel display, new materials, biomedicine and e-commerce, whose industrial output in total has taken up one thirds of the municipal industrial output. GDD is one of the largest growth poles and power sources of Guangzhou’s development in the next 5 year and even the next 10 years.
GDD is a demonstration window for China's opening-up. The district gathered more than 3,400 foreign-funded enterprises, and 135 projects invested by the world's top 500 enterprises. It attracted many well-known US companies, including P & G, Amway, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Jabil Group, Baxter etc. Per incomplete statistics, the number of US-funded projects here exceeds 40 whose total investment is about 40 billion US dollars, which makes GDD the area that attracts most concentrated investment from US-funded enterprises in the South China.
GDD encourages enterprises in this district to go abroad and participate in global competition and cooperation. For example, Guangzhou Leafun Culture Science and Technology Co. Ltd is the major shareholder of Leyard Group. In August 2015, Leyard Group and Planar Systems, Inc (globally leading display and digital signage system supplier) announced that they have reached a definitive M & A agreement. In January, 2017, Leyard Group successfully acquired 100% stake of Naturalpoint, Inc which isthe global leader of optical tracking and motion capture solutions for 125 million US dollars in the name of Leyard Group US Planar Systems Inc.
GDD is the base of innovation and entrepreneurship for the first batch of China’s overseas high-level talents, and has gathered 62 talents of “China Thousand Talents Program” and 68 leading personnel in science and technology, more than 3000 overseas returned students, and over 1,000 enterprises. GDD has become the district that attracts most intensive resources of talents in southern China. The Convention on Exchange of Overseas Talents and the Guangzhou Convention of Overseas Chinese Scholars and Technology that firstly launched in 1998 in this district has become the largest and the most influential overseas talent exchange platform at highest level in China. The biggest incentive that GDD is able to grant to innovation and entrepreneurship is RMB 45.8 million. Last year, GDD set up 12 overseas talents workshops to build up a global network to attract talents in the United States (including Silicon Valley, Washington D.C., San Francisco, New York, etc.), Japan and other countries.
This is a high-end platform of innovation and entrepreneurship. Sino-Singapore Guangzhou Knowledge City is the demonstration project for cooperation between Guangdong Province and Singapore. The planning area covers 123 square kilometers. It focuses on developing a new generation of information and technology, culture and creativity, science and education services and other industries to accelerate the development of industries such as new energy and energy-saving, new materials, life and health, etc.
The planning area of Huangpu Port Economic Zone is 42 square kilometers, of which the water area is 15 square kilometers. It focuses on the development of commercial circulation, shipping, port headquarters, business and leisure, cultural tourism, cruise (yacht) economy and other modern service industry. Besides, it is the second central business district (CBD) that Guangzhou is constructing. As the main park of Guangzhou High-tech Zone, the planning area of Guangzhou Science City is 37.47 square kilometers, and its cumulative investment is more than RMB 190 billion. It has gathered more than 3,000 technology companies, over 500 scientific research institutions, and built the largest incubator accelerator cluster in South China. Guangzhou International Biological Island is the core area of Guangzhou National Biological Industry Base, and it covers an area of 1.83 square kilometers. At present, it has accumulated a total investment of RMB 9.35 billion, established a platform for Sino-British cooperation and Sino-Israel cooperation.
GDD owns a world-class investment environment for innovation and entrepreneurship. "All for the investors, and all for the enterprises. We’re devoted to providing the best service and the best environment, so that investors get maximum returns." The district respects for the growth of science and technology enterprises and improves the science and technology innovation system and talent policy system continually. The director support funds for the scientific and technological innovation and the introduction of talents has reached RMB 1.3 billion.
Earlier this year, the Guangzhou Development District took the lead in releasing 4 industrial policies to support the development of advanced manufacturing industry, modern service industry, headquarter economy and high-tech industry, each policy consists of 10 articles which were favorably known as the four "Gold 10" and GDD has increased fiscal budget by RMB 2.2 billion for this program. In addition, in order to create a more convenient investment environment, GDD took the lead to innovate its management system by conducting an in-depth reform from three aspects including the approval formalities, enterprise service, and intelligent supervision, so as to ensure the incentive can be granted to investor’s pocket within 34 working days.
Standing at a new historical starting point, as the core area of Guangzhou International Science and Technology Innovation Center, Guangzhou Development District is vigorously implementing three strategies, i.e. innovation-driven development, open cooperation and promotion, environmental optimization, so as to store energy and power for Guangzhou to participate in international competition and cooperation.
