Hefei National High-tech Industry Development Zone

Hefei National High-tech Industry Development Zone is one of the first national high-tech zones promoted by the State Council in 1991. After 27 years, it has formed many leading industries and innovative enterprises such as China's largest voice recognition company, iFlytek.

The high-tech zone covers an area of 128 square kilometers and houses a population of over 200,000. It is home to more than 30,000 enterprises, over 852 of which are certificated high-tech ones and 22 are listed on domestic or overseas stock markets.

Based on modern manufacturing, guided by emerging sectors and supported by service industries, the zone has gathered many high-end industrial clusters, including artificial intelligence, public safety, new energy, biological medicine and advanced manufacturing.

Its innovation center currently consists of 37 maker spaces, 12 of which are of national level, 19 incubators and eight accelerators. The regional financial center houses over 150 foundations with a total scale of 160 billion yuan, offering venture investment, startup loans, fund raising services and more.

In 2016, the output value of Hefei National High-tech Industry Development Zone totaled 56.24 billion yuan ($8.19 billion), rising by 11.1 percent. Fixed assets investment amounted to 43.09 billion yuan, 26.01 billion yuan of which was taken up by industrial investment. The total volume of imports and exports added up to $2.41 billion. Investment promotion activities attracted a total of 26.3 billion yuan, including foreign direct investment worth $479 million.