Chengdu's high-tech new economy excels

Innovative firms cluster in Sichuan provincial capital's development zones

Chengdu, the capital of Southwest China's Sichuan province, is putting its weight behind high-growth and high-tech industries to drive what is called the "new economy" and further promote the city's high-quality development.

December's New Economy Index, produced by media group Caixin and Chengdu-based fintech company Business Big Data, shows that Chengdu ranked second in China from August to December in terms of the output of its new economy industries.

The biopharmaceutical industry is an area where Chengdu has had many successes in recent years.

Baili Pharmaceutical, located in the ambitious Chengdu Medical City development, revealed an innovative drug for cancer in November after five years of research and development.

The medicine has entered clinical trials conducted by the Institute of Hematology for the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences.

Wang Jianxiang, a professor at the institute, said the new drug is the first tetraspecific antibody to be approved for clinical studies in the world.

Haisco, another pharmaceutical company claiming its successes in Chengdu Medical City, launched an innovative intravenous anesthesia drug in December.

According to the National Medical Products Administration, the drug has been independently researched and developed in China and has independent intellectual property rights.

Chengdu Medical City has attracted 443 pharmaceutical enterprises, their upstream and downstream companies and 12 biopharmaceutical R&D platforms.

The number of national-level high-tech enterprises in Chengdu Medical City has grown by some 30 percent for the past two years. The revenues from enterprises' core business in the medical city have increased by more than 20 percent for the past three years.

Introducing advanced technologies such as 5G, big data, artificial intelligence and the internet of things into more traditional industries has also born fruit.

On Jan 7, railway rolling stock manufacturer CRRC Chengdu completed production of China's first autonomous city A-type train that uses 5G vehicle-to-vehicle communication technology and can run at speeds of 160 kilometers per hour.

The new-generation autonomous driving train is the fastest among China's A-type city trains, helping improve city rail transit and lead the development of smart urban trains, according to CRRC Chengdu.

China's first intelligent and autonomous train test platform was also unveiled by CRRC Chengdu.

The platform, which integrates technologies including 5G, big data, AI and the industrial internet, will be used to conduct all-around testing for rail transit equipment based on real trains and lines.

With the construction of the Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle and the integrated urban development among Sichuan's four cities of Chengdu, Deyang, Meishan and Ziyang, the new-generation urban train and intelligent train test platform are expected to promote the intelligent transformation of Chengdu's rail transit network. They will help lay a solid foundation for the city's establishing a smart one-hour rail transit network, according to the local government.

JWELL, founded in 2013 in Chengdu, provides intelligent and internet services, including intelligent warehousing and logistics, online transaction and technology export, for bulk commodities such as iron and steel, titanium vanadium and chemicals.

Hou Yichang, who is engaged in the steel business, said: "Doing business on the online platform (established by JWELL) is as convenient as young people buying clothes on Taobao.

"In 2009, I needed to negotiate prices with sellers all over the country and to sort out logistics by myself, which cost me a lot of money and time. But now, I just need to click on the website of JWELL to complete the transaction and to follow the logistics in real time."

The platform now has more than 80,000 users. JWELL made 22 billion yuan ($3.4 billion) in 2020, up from 90 million yuan in 2014.

"Chengdu's new economic aggregate index, vitality index, competitiveness and the number of new economy employees all rank at the forefront in China," said an official at the Chengdu new economic development commission.

Chengdu will accelerate the construction of two innovative development pilot zones for digital economy and AI, to foster the development of the new economy, especially in the fields of 5G, big data, AI and clean energy, according to the commission.