The story appears on

Page A2

December 19, 2011

GET this page in PDF

Free for subscribers

View shopping cart

Related News

Home » Business » Real Estate

City's Silicon Valley attracts talent with low-cost housing

A NEW batch of subsidized apartments in Zhangjiang High-Tech Park in Pudong, often referred to as Shanghai's Silicon Valley, were released yesterday as part of the city's effort to attract talented professionals.

Just 1,000 yuan (US$157.5) a month on average rents an apartment with toilet, kitchen and basic furniture.

Facilities including catering and transport services will be introduced into the new community which will soon have 10 buildings with thousands of apartments. A new bus route is to be launched on December 28 to connect the community on Zuchongzhi Road to Metro Line 2's Guanglan Road Station.

"The rent is lower than the market price," said Peng Song, deputy director of the Pudong New Area. "The local government and firms offer to cover part of the rents to reduce the cost to employees."

A man surnamed Cao was one of the first batch of residents. He came to the city from Anhui Province a year ago and had shared an apartment with four people in Zhangjiang Town to save money. He applied for one of the apartments as soon as he heard of the scheme.

"The new apartment is cheaper and safer," he said.

The community provides different types of apartments to cater to the different needs of bachelors, couples or families.

Young workers

Renters will be allowed to live in the low-rent apartments for a maximum of two years so that the scheme benefits more people.

The low-rent housing aims to provide transitional homes for young workers who don't have savings and wouldn't be able to afford a home immediately, said Ding Lei, deputy director of the Zhangjiang High-Tech Park Administrative Committee.

Zhangjiang has more than 180,000 employees and more than 70 percent of them are from out of town and under 35 years old.

The park plans to build 300,000 square meters of apartments for professionals by 2013. Since it started to provide low-rent housing in 2001, Zhangjiang has built 270,000 square meters of apartments for professionals working in the high-tech park.

Zhangjiang yesterday also launched subsidized office buildings for start-ups with each office, ranging between 50 square meters to 75 square meters, costing 1,000 yuan a month.

"We want to reduce the start-up cost to attract global talents," Ding said.

More than 80 percent of firms in the high-tech park are small enterprises. Companies set up by overseas returnees account for 31.5 percent of the total number of the firms.




 

Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.

沪公网安备 31010602000204号

Email this to your friend