Shanghai makes big plans for three sectors

Shanghai has drafted separate action plans to promote the three newly identified priority sectors of low-carbon businesses, the metaverse and smart devices, the city's municipal government announced on Friday.

The megacity will strive to expand the market value of the three sectors to more than 1.5 trillion yuan ($224 billion) by 2025, local officials said.

The three action plans are in line with the global trends in industrial innovation development, and will also strengthen the national goals.

The proposed industrial layout in the three sectors will hopefully help transform and upgrade the city's real economy, generate new business opportunities, unleash gigantic market value and accelerate growth momentum, said Wu Jincheng, director of the Shanghai Commission of Economy and Informatization during a news conference in Shanghai on Friday.

New policies and measures are planned to ensure the high-quality development of the three sectors. Organization, coordination, financial support, layout, talent, opening-up and collaboration will all figure in the list of new priorities, Wu said.

To reach the goal of 1.5 trillion yuan in market scale by 2025, Shanghai has updated its industrial mapping and launched a batch of special industrial parks. In addition, talented professionals and innovative teams will be welcomed, funds for the metaverse sector will be established, and innovative enterprises' listing on stock exchanges will be supported, he said.

There is immense scope for technological innovation and industrial expansion through high-quality development of the green and low-carbon sectors, he said. "By 2025, the industrial scale of the green and low-carbon sectors is targeted to exceed 500 billion yuan, and cultivate 10 industry leaders, 100 enterprises strong in core technologies and 1,000 firms with expertise in certain niches."

Qiu Wenjin, deputy head of the Shanghai Municipal Development and Reform Commission, said the city has put sustainable development of the hydrogen industry as an important solution to achieve its carbon neutrality goals.

After years of development, a complete ecosystem for fuel-cell vehicles has been formed in the city. This ecosystem includes 10 hydrogen filling stations and 30-kilometer-long hydrogen transportation pipelines.

A medium to long-term plan for Shanghai's hydrogen industry was published in May. The plan recommended construction of 70 hydrogen filling stations and three to five world-class innovative research and development platforms. It also envisages 10,000 fuel-cell vehicles in operation in the future, Qiu said.

To nurture the metaverse sector, efforts will be made to apply the new technology in the transformation of economy, everyday life and digitalization.

The city plans to grow 10 metaverse enterprises with global competitiveness and 100 companies specializing in certain metaverse niches. The local metaverse sector's scale is seen reaching 350 billion yuan by 2025, Wu said.

"Digital technologies like artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud computing and big data are key technological foundations for the development of the metaverse. In the city's 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) for digital economy development, we will enhance the layout of a complete industrial chain of the metaverse from fundamentals to applications," Qiu said.

The development of intelligent or smart terminals will focus on creating well-known device brands and a solid ecosystem. Emphasis will be also on the development of smart devices and technologies like intelligent connected vehicles, smart robots, virtual reality, intelligent home appliances and smart wearables.