Targeted financing essential to boosting innovative, fast growth

Xi'an Hi-tech Industries Development Zone has embraced new development phases by investing in innovation-driven industries with high growth potential.

2016 witnessed an actual use of foreign investment of $3 billion and actual introduction of domestic investment of 50 billion yuan ($7.25 billion) in the zone.

Twenty projects with individual annual production volumes of 1 billion yuan settled down in the zone, as well as 15 research and development centers from the world's top 500 enterprises.

"To make breakthroughs in attracting investment requires the participation of industrial giants," said Li Yi, Party secretary of the zone's working committee.

"But small and microenterprises should never lag behind. We should embrace and foster a number of enterprises that are capable of generating high growth and can stand strong in the market."

On April 9, ZTE, a leading Chinese telecommunications equipment company, launched the second phase of its intelligent terminal manufacturing project in the zone.

This new investment brought 1 billion yuan in a bid to upgrade ZTE's intelligent terminal manufacturing headquarters in the zone, as well as to optimize and integrate terminal manufacturers.

In the coming years, ZTE's central plant in the zone will produce a variety of mobile terminals, such as tablets, augmented and virtual reality products, and others, excluding mobile phones.

The project will realize a new production capacity of 15 million pieces annually, generating more than 10 billion yuan in annual sales revenue over the next eight years. It will further promote development of the electronic information industrial chain and become a core part of the industrial cluster.

Since July 2014, ZTE has invested in the zone constantly. The 25 newly equipped production lines generated 17.3 billion yuan in industrial output in 2016, providing jobs for 3,400 people.

A number of corporations have chosen the zone as a base, including those involved in such innovation-driven industries as intelligent terminals, semiconductors, biopharmaceuticals, new energy and software manufacturing.

In the field of semiconductors, the zone has gathered Samsung, Micron Technology, Hoteam Software and other leading enterprises with both design and research ability.

Through the industrial convergence of semiconductor enterprises, the zone is committed to becoming the third pole for the industry globally.

In the field of biomedical science, a production base built by Johnson & Johnson, which is headquartered in the United States, is expected to be the industry's largest single plant in China, with annual sales revenue expected to top 10 billion yuan.

The zone also took the opportunity to develop new energy autos by introducing BYD's high-end smart terminal manufacturing project, a new energy bus project and a monorail project. These three projects launched with investment of 5 billion yuan and are expected to generate 43 billion yuan in annual output.

In the field of software and service outsourcing, the zone has gathered more than 90 percent of Xi'an's software and information service enterprises. Around 80 percent of its animation, games and content-providing platforms are based on internet services.

Software enterprises that have settled in the zone include Samsung, Intel, Google, Siemens and more global top-500 enterprises. Leading Chinese companies such as Beyondsoft, iSoftStone, Chinasoft International, Huawei and Digital China have also set up offices in the zone.

The zone will also grasp the opportunity to promote the development of civil-military integration.

"To highlight this industrial investment, we will upgrade, strengthen and expand the industrial chain under the guideline of constructing eight 10-billion-yuan large-scale industrial clusters," said Li.

"We will take precise measures to attract related enterprises, support their production and integration and do our best to expand the scale and attraction of these industrial clusters."

The zone has pledged to further optimize its investment system over the next year, providing stronger support to attract valuable projects.

(China Daily 05/15/2017 page33)