A new dawn for innovative industries
Print Edition
FOR more than a century, Shanghai’s Yangpu District has been a hub for modern industry, higher learning and urban planning. Now, the district is switching gears from its roaring past to a tech-driven future with high-end services.
As Shanghai is stepping up its efforts to build a technology and innovation center of global influence, Yangpu District, once a traditional industrial base that cultivated China’s first waterworks, power plant, gasworks and textile mill, is now planning to become the most crucial hub of innovation in Shanghai by 2030, District Director Xie Jiangang said in a media briefing last Wednesday.
The ambitious blueprint is based on the century-long history of Yangpu as a cradle of national manufacturing brands such as bicycle producer Forever and sneaker maker Huili, which accounted for 25 percent of Shanghai’s total industrial output during the 1970s and 1980s, data from consulting firm Deloitte shows.
With deep reforms in the state-owned enterprises at the end of the last century, numbers of SOEs like textile factories stood at 200 in 2003, down from 2,000 a decade earlier. The number has continued to shrink, local government data shows.
Changing gears
The northeastern part of Shanghai has gradually put emphasis on high-end services and innovation. It’s now home to about 600 innovative companies and institutions, including leading international brands such as Siemens and IBM. More than 2,000 small-to-medium sized start-ups have also set up shops in the area, with more to follow in the coming future.
“Yangpu has up to 10 square kilometers of old factory space available for re-development into cost-effective workshops or open space, and more than 6 million square meters of business areas under design and planning. There is a huge potential,” Xie said.
Tang Haidong, vice party secretary of CPC Shanghai Yangpu District Committee, said that the industrial transition from an industry-oriented to a knowledge-oriented district is a natural and inevitable choice for Yangpu’s overall development.
“Modern services are a more reasonable path for Yangpu since it is located in the central area of the city,” Tang said. “A splendid past brought fame to the district, but it’s time to embrace the turning point of its positioning in the city.”
The strategic layout includes projects like Shanghai International Fashion Center and innovation center Changyang Valley.
SIFC, formerly Cotton Mill No. 17, has now turned to a stylish clubhouse and multi-functional show arena with a gross floor area of 143,000 square meters. While Changyang Valley, formerly Donghua Textile Factory, is now an innovation campus with seven start-up incubators, including Tsinghua University-backed TusStar.
To support an innovation-driven economy, local municipal government, private equity and venture capital companies are working together to develop Yangpu’s innovation industry, Tang said.
The district government has initially injected 500 million yuan (US$76.92 million) into the sector, attracting a total of 20 billion yuan in social capital, mainly from Noah Wealth Management Co and China Broadband Capital.
Silicon Valley Bank has established a 50-50 joint venture with Shanghai Pudong Development Bank that will focus on lending in yuan to technology firms in the Internet, health care, new energy and new material industries in Yangpu.
Yangpu is home to more than 10 prestigious universities like Fudan University, together with 20 technology parks and state-backed enterprises such as Aviation Industry Corporation China.
This cradle of talent has made Yangpu an ideal destination for multinational corporations. For the next step, Yangpu aims to encourage entrepreneurship among university students by providing more competitive office rentals and access to mentors.
Financial support
“The district government will prepare a budget of 1 to 2 billion yuan this year to further boost the sentiment of entrepreneurship in the area,” Tang said. “The percentage of university students who started their own business after graduation still stands below 5 percent. We hope, under our efforts, that more and more students can test their knowledge with practice.”
In comparison with Beijing and Shenzhen, which focus on gathering and boosting start-ups in the Internet industry and hardware product chain, Shanghai has a goal of establishing itself with more global influence and connections.
InnoSpace, an incubator located in the Knowledge and Innovation Community in Yangpu, for example, has taken in several start-ups last year from South Korea as a test field to cultivate international enterprises that target Chinese users.
Yangpu now also has its eyes set on building national platforms and channels to absorb international leading technologies and talents. One example is National Eastern Technology Transfer Center, which was set up in May and focuses on strategic emerging of technologies from different industries.
Tang believes that Yangpu is likely to create breakthroughs in innovation sector.
“Internationalization is the special advantage for Shanghai in building a global innovation hub, as we have law-based routines and fairness in trade,” Tang said.
“That’s a crucial element for us to build a market-oriented economy, and the reason why entrepreneurs, especially those in high-end industries like finance, biomedicine and information technology, would finally choose Shanghai as their start of innovation,” Tang added.
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