SIP's quest for a 'new urban center of Suzhou'

• Published date: 12 November 2021
• Publication title: Shanghai Daily

S an important cooperation project between the governments of China and Singapore, Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP) was established in February of 1994. Over the past 27 years, the industrial park has grown rapidly from a low-lying marshland to an international, modern and leading fashion town.

This fall, it was given the role of "building a world-class high-tech park and a first-class pilot free trade zone to become a new urban center of Suzhou facing toward the future."

Shen Mi, Party secretary of SIP, noted that to accelerate the construction of world-class high-tech parks is to further focus on innovation, follow developed regions at home and abroad, and create an open and cooperative high ground of scientific and technological innovation, an independent high ground of industrial innovation and a high ground of institutional innovation in line with international standards.

"To accelerate the construction of a first-class pilot free trade zone is to further focus on opening-up, benchmark the highest international economic and trade rules and build a pilot free trade zone with the most active institutional innovation, the brightest opening background, the most prominent industrial advantages, the strongest innovation momentum and the most superior business environment," said Shen.

"To accelerate the construction of a new urban center in Suzhou for the future is to further focus on the city, merge into the regional integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta region and form a twin-city system together with Shanghai, strengthen urban construction and management, improve the core functions such as science and innovation, modern service, consumption and cultural exchanges, so as to make the industry heavier, the urban life warmer, with higher quality and more taste," Shen added.

It was last year that SIP achieved a regional GDP of 290.7 billion yuan (US$46 billion), ranking fourth among all the national high-tech zones throughout the country.

The research and development expenditure accounted for 4.5 percent of GDP, and the total output of enterprises with their annual incomes exceeding 20 million yuan reached more than 500 billion yuan.

Behind the figures is the "hard core" support of industrial development. In 2020, the three emerging industries of biomedicine, nanotechnology and artificial intelligence in SIP maintained an average annual growth rate of more than 20 percent, and the total output reached 249.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 22.9...