Yangpu District reinvents itself
October 31, 2012, Wednesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
NOT long ago, Yangpu District was a heavy manufacturing base. Now it's an up-and-comer emphasizing knowledge, innovation and entrepreneurship. Victoria Fei reports on the turn-around.
Yangpu District is reinventing itself and has become one of Shanghai's up-and-comers.
Seeking to transform itself from a gray center of heavy industry into an innovative, knowledge-centered district, Yangpu now aims to become a national pilot district in terms of creativity and fresh ideas.
In fact, before the Shanghai Office of Silicon Valley Bank settled in Yangpu a few years ago, it had never occurred to anybody that this traditional industrial base would have a place in building Shanghai into an international financial center.
In 2000, the district's fiscal revenue reached 1.6 billion yuan (US$255.4 million), ranking last but one in the city. In 2011, it rose to 6.4 billion yuan, with the value added of tertiary industry accounting for 77.1 percent. Its number of new scientific and technological companies ranked first among districts.
"If the district does not take the initiative to transform itself, it will lag so far behind that the local government will hardly be able to face its people," says Chen Yin, Party secretary of Yangpu District. "With so much pressure, the district must take risks to innovate and tackle difficulties."
Comparing a map of Yangpu District today with the one from 10 years ago, though the general areas remain the same, the functions and significance are completely different.
New Jiangwan City is emerging with its international, intelligent and ecological facilities. Wujiaochang area has experienced a rebirth, becoming a popular commercial area.
Chifeng Road, which is known as a street of design, has been expanded into the Tongji Knowledge-based Economic Circle with an annual output of tens of billions of yuan.
Tongji economic circle
According to local government statistics, the total output of the Tongji circle in 2000 was less than 3 billion yuan. By the end of last year, it had reached 18 billion yuan, with an annual growth rate of 20 percent.
To achieve this, the local government decided to abandon several commercial property projects and reserve that land and related community resources for the Tongji economic circle.
To date, almost half of the urban planning design in small- and medium-sized towns in China comes from the Tongji Knowledge-based Economic Circle.
Dalian Road is a cluster area of headquarters and research and development centers, where brands such as Siemens and Continental AG have moved.
Meanwhile, roads along the Huangpu River in the district will become a new focus driving the development of Yangpu in the next five to 10 years.
However, the road to transformation is bumpy. At the end of 2002, the district's number of unemployed people reached 140,000, around one-sixth of its labor force. Around 57,000 were in need of social assistance, the most of any of Shanghai's central districts.
Problems were made worse by the high concentration of traditional manufacturing industries that were highly polluting and made inefficient use of resources.
Resources in land, science and education were not tapped. In 2003, the city government set "Innovation-oriented Yangpu" as its new development goal. Since then, a major transformation was driven by universities, science parks and communities.
"Yangpu is home to many universities and scientific institutions, which nurture a group of innovative enterprises. However, small enterprises require support from local government to become big," says Wei Guowang, deputy director of the district's financial services office. "Yangpu government helped small- and medium-sized enterprises solve the difficulty of financing; it acted creatively by attracting total funds of 19.3 billion yuan in the past two years."
The DNA of innovation has swept the district.
By the end of 2011, there were 5,077 scientific and technological enterprises in the district. Four young entrepreneurs from Yangpu were among 70 from across the world who gathered in Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum in January. Among the 70, only six were from China.
To encourage innovation and enterprise, the district has set up a public training base targeting small- and medium-sized enterprises at different stages of development.
In past two years, 167 enterprises and 188 projects involving emerging industries such as IT, new materials and the Internet have been nurtured by the local government.
Yangpu District is reinventing itself and has become one of Shanghai's up-and-comers.
Seeking to transform itself from a gray center of heavy industry into an innovative, knowledge-centered district, Yangpu now aims to become a national pilot district in terms of creativity and fresh ideas.
In fact, before the Shanghai Office of Silicon Valley Bank settled in Yangpu a few years ago, it had never occurred to anybody that this traditional industrial base would have a place in building Shanghai into an international financial center.
In 2000, the district's fiscal revenue reached 1.6 billion yuan (US$255.4 million), ranking last but one in the city. In 2011, it rose to 6.4 billion yuan, with the value added of tertiary industry accounting for 77.1 percent. Its number of new scientific and technological companies ranked first among districts.
"If the district does not take the initiative to transform itself, it will lag so far behind that the local government will hardly be able to face its people," says Chen Yin, Party secretary of Yangpu District. "With so much pressure, the district must take risks to innovate and tackle difficulties."
Comparing a map of Yangpu District today with the one from 10 years ago, though the general areas remain the same, the functions and significance are completely different.
New Jiangwan City is emerging with its international, intelligent and ecological facilities. Wujiaochang area has experienced a rebirth, becoming a popular commercial area.
Chifeng Road, which is known as a street of design, has been expanded into the Tongji Knowledge-based Economic Circle with an annual output of tens of billions of yuan.
Tongji economic circle
According to local government statistics, the total output of the Tongji circle in 2000 was less than 3 billion yuan. By the end of last year, it had reached 18 billion yuan, with an annual growth rate of 20 percent.
To achieve this, the local government decided to abandon several commercial property projects and reserve that land and related community resources for the Tongji economic circle.
To date, almost half of the urban planning design in small- and medium-sized towns in China comes from the Tongji Knowledge-based Economic Circle.
Dalian Road is a cluster area of headquarters and research and development centers, where brands such as Siemens and Continental AG have moved.
Meanwhile, roads along the Huangpu River in the district will become a new focus driving the development of Yangpu in the next five to 10 years.
However, the road to transformation is bumpy. At the end of 2002, the district's number of unemployed people reached 140,000, around one-sixth of its labor force. Around 57,000 were in need of social assistance, the most of any of Shanghai's central districts.
Problems were made worse by the high concentration of traditional manufacturing industries that were highly polluting and made inefficient use of resources.
Resources in land, science and education were not tapped. In 2003, the city government set "Innovation-oriented Yangpu" as its new development goal. Since then, a major transformation was driven by universities, science parks and communities.
"Yangpu is home to many universities and scientific institutions, which nurture a group of innovative enterprises. However, small enterprises require support from local government to become big," says Wei Guowang, deputy director of the district's financial services office. "Yangpu government helped small- and medium-sized enterprises solve the difficulty of financing; it acted creatively by attracting total funds of 19.3 billion yuan in the past two years."
The DNA of innovation has swept the district.
By the end of 2011, there were 5,077 scientific and technological enterprises in the district. Four young entrepreneurs from Yangpu were among 70 from across the world who gathered in Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum in January. Among the 70, only six were from China.
To encourage innovation and enterprise, the district has set up a public training base targeting small- and medium-sized enterprises at different stages of development.
In past two years, 167 enterprises and 188 projects involving emerging industries such as IT, new materials and the Internet have been nurtured by the local government.
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