Suzhou's Xiangcheng spurs local growth with high-tech

Xiangcheng, one of the fastest-growing districts in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, is stepping up efforts to develop high-tech industries for further regional economic growth.

The 489-square-kilometer district is home to about 1 million people. Located near the cities of Shanghai, Hangzhou and Nanjing in East China, Xiangcheng district boasts connectivity by railway lines with Beijing and other areas.

Some 103 projects worth 23.59 billion yuan ($3.6 billion) were recently signed to boost high-tech development in Xiangcheng.

The projects cover digital finance, intelligent connected vehicles and the industrial internet among other areas.

Xiangcheng also announced it will offer up to 100 million yuan in subsidies to projects and up to 10 million yuan in financial support to attract experts and professionals to the district.

"Developing high-tech R&D as well as related manufacturing industries has been a long-term target for Xiangcheng," said Gu Haidong, Party secretary of the district.

The projects were under the framework of Xiangcheng's five-year plan (2021-25) issued recently to align with the country's 14th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development and Long-Range Objectives Through the Year 2035, which set the main goals and tasks for the country from 2021 to 2025 and beyond.

According to the local government, Xiangcheng's five-year plan sets the main targets for district development over the next five years. It also attaches importance to promoting industrial development, building a modern industrial network, facilitating technology and innovation, enhancing infrastructure construction and improving the overall business environment.

Yang Weimin, head of the China Institute for Development Planning at Tsinghua University and lead editor for Xiangcheng's five-year plan, said development plans made for counties and districts are an important but relatively little recognized part of the country's overall development plan.

Such plans set goals and targets in multiple areas that are closely related with local residents' life and show them government solutions to problems residents care about mostly, like those of education, housing and business environment.

The projects were part of Xiangcheng's concerted efforts to develop industries to boost regional economic growth.

In the past year, the local government has held 125 promotional activities with 627 projects signed entailing investment of 231.9 billion yuan.

The district is home to 1,615 companies in the new economy, covering areas like digital finance, intelligent connected vehicles, industrial internet, advanced materials, blockchain and bio-medicine.

Gu said: "Xiangcheng aims to incubate at least 1,200 companies in the new economy each year for three consecutive years, and their total number is expected to surpass 5,000 by 2023.

"In addition, Xiangcheng will beef up efforts establishing a national-level digital financing industrial cluster, a national-level intelligent connected vehicles industrial cluster, a national-level demonstration zone for blockchain development and many others."