ZGC promotes digital economy and finances advanced manufacturing

The 2020 National Mass Entrepreneurship and Innovation Week began on Oct 15. Its Beijing event, designated the Zhongguancun Innovation and Entrepreneurship Season, was launched at the Zhongguancun National Independent Innovation Demonstration Zone Exhibition Center.

From Oct 15 to 21, the Beijing event will hold online and offline ceremonies, exhibitions and thematic activities with the theme of "Innovation leads entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship drives employment".

At the launching ceremony of the Zhongguancun Innovation and Entrepreneurship Season, the Zhongguancun Administrative Committee issued the "Action Plan on Development Led by Digital Economy in the Zhongguancun National Independent Innovation Demonstration Zone (2020-2022)" (the "Action Plan").

The committee also signed the "Cooperation Plan on High-Quality Development of the Advanced Manufacturing Industry in the Zhongguancun Demonstration Zone" (the "Cooperation Plan") with the Beijing Branch of China Development and Zhongguancun Guarantee Company.

Aim at new opportunities in the digital economy and develop new business models

The digital economy has become the high ground of a new round of global industrial competition and a new driving force to promote the revitalization of the real economy and accelerate economic transformation and upgrading.

According to preliminary calculations, in 2019 the total revenue of Zhongguancun's digital economy reached 3.01 trillion yuan ($44.79 million), 45.3% of the total revenue of the demonstration zone and a year-on-year increase of 18.3%.

The Action Plan proposes

• The total revenue of digital economy enterprises in the Zhongguancun Demonstration Zone will exceed 4.6 trillion yuan, with an average annual growth rate of not less than 15% by 2022.

• With a focus on the improvement of hashrates, algorithm optimization, data collection and transmission, as well as integration and application of key industries, breakthroughs will be made in a number of key core technologies and application innovation technologies.

• Cultivation of more than 10 platform-based leading companies with global influence, 100 unicorn companies, enterprises with champion products in subdivisions, and a number of other technological innovation companies will be accelerated.

• Support the construction of data transactions, pilot test bases, and industrial collaborative innovation platforms; actively explore and pilot a set of innovation policies, and create a good industrial ecology and policy environment that meets the needs of the digital economy's development.

The Action Plan, for the first time, sets out to cultivate the ten new business tracks of industrial Internet, collaborative office, new retail, internet healthcare, smart education, smart transportation, financial technology, smart agriculture, smart life and digital cultural tourism.

It also mentions building seven innovation scenarios, including smart cities, a "Technology Winter Olympics", smart parks, smart factories, smart hospitals, smart methods to increase people's livelihoods and Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei collaboration.

The plan will implement six main tasks to promote technological leadership, and leadership in industry, applications, clusters, the environmenbt and and rule formulation.

Consolidate the foundation of digital economy innovation and realize technological leadership; expand the ten new formats of the digital economy and achieve industrial leadership; build new scenarios for the digital economy and achieve application leadership; cultivate a digital economy enterprise matrix and realize cluster leadership; optimize the allocation of innovative resources for ecological guidance; improve the governance system of the digital economy and achieve rule-based guidance.

The Action Plan includes four initiatives:

Strengthen Zhongguancun's ability to supply innovative technologies; stress ten new business models sponsored with point-to-point aid; build a new ecosystem of digital economy innovation and development; and explore and innovate the digital economy policy environment and governance rules.

Launch exclusive financing products to support advanced manufacturing enterprises

The high-quality development of the manufacturing industry is an indispensable way to build a powerful modern socialist country. Supporting the development of small, medium and micro-manufacturing enterprises is the basis for the high-quality development of the manufacturing industry.

The Cooperation Plan is a new type of exclusive financing product to support the development of SMEs in the advanced manufacturing industry in the Zhongguancun Demonstration Zone. The first phase will last for five years and the capital size will reach three billion yuan. It has the characteristics of long cycles, low cost, low thresholds and in-batches structure.

The Zhongguancun Administrative Committee recommends high-quality enterprises in the advanced manufacturing industry of the Zhongguancun Demonstration Zone, the China Development Bank then provides low-cost, long-term funding, and Zhongguancun Guarantee Company finally provides credit support for these enterprises.

According to the principle of balancing economic and social benefits, the plan effectively identifies and supports an array of Zhongguancun advanced manufacturing enterprises.

The launch of this Cooperation Plan will effectively address the financing problems, difficulties and pain points of advanced manufacturing enterprises in Zhongguancun, improve the quality and efficiency of financial services in the real economy, and help enterprises to gather varied resources. It will also introduce high-end talents and focus on the core and key aspects of manufacturing, including key technological breakthroughs.

In addition, it will promote the high-end development of advanced manufacturing in the Zhongguancun Demonstration Zone and help Beijing and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region evolve into world-class advanced manufacturing clusters.