Suzhou New District

Suzhou New District (SND), or Suzhou High-tech Development Zone, is located in the west of Suzhou, Jiangsu province, with Taihu Lake to the west and the 2,500-year-old core of the city to the east.

With a population of 800,000, the district covers an area of 332 square kilometers, including 109 sq km of the Taihu lake area. 

It is one of the first national high-tech zones, and, in addition to high technology, is also known for its charming natural scenery and profound culture.

SND, the former “Hexi new district”, has administered six administrative villages on behalf of Hengtang town since March 1992. 

In December 1992, the district was approved by the State Council as a national high-tech industrial development zone. It was officially named the Suzhou New District in 2002.

SND now ranks 17th in the national high-tech zone list and second in the list of Jiangsu’s national high-tech districts. It also performs well in evaluations of innovation-driven development strategies.

Topographically, SND is elevated in the west and depressed in the east. It has a subtropical monsoonal climate with distinct seasons and is mild and humid all year round. Its average temperature is around 17.7 degrees centigrade. 

The district has witnessed soaring development since construction, becoming the key driving force of Suzhou’s economic growth, a demonstration area for self-innovation, an industrial base of high technologies and one of the most prosperous commercial areas in Suzhou.

 In 2017, its GDP reached 116 billion yuan ($18.46 billion). The industrial output value totaled 310.9 billion yuan and the public finance budget revenue amounted to 14.3 billion yuan. The output values of emerging industries and high-tech industries accounted for 57.1 percent and 78.5 percent of the gross industrial output value, while the added value of the service industry took up 38.7 percent of the GDP. 

Industries

Suzhou embroidery industry, financial industry, medical device industry, new energy industry, rail traffic industry

Industrial Parks

BGI Life and Health Town

Suzhou Financial Town

Suzhou Embroidery Town

Suzhou Science and Technology Town

SND Integrated Free Trade Zone

Suzhou Tong'an Science and Technology Industrial Park

Xushuguan Economic and Technological Development Zone

China Suzhou Human Resource Service Industrial Park

Suzhou National Environmental New & Hi-tech Industrial Park

Advantages

SND enjoys convenient transportation, as it is 90 km from Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport, 130 km from Pudong International Airport, 100 km from Shanghai Port, 90 km from Zhangjiagang Port, 70 km from Taicang Port and 60 km from Changshu Port. Besides, a string of traffic channels, including the Huning (Shanghai-Nanjing) highway, State Road 312, the Suzhou round-the-city expressway, the Jinghu (Beijing-Shanghai) railway and the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, run across the district.

SND has become a hotspot for innovative platforms, with more than 80 institutes so far of which 21 were newly added in 2017. 

SND has built a big data management platform for industrial enterprises, helping enterprises above a designated size improve profit and tax by 8.2 percent and 7.4 percent respectively.

SND has rolled out a series of policies concerning talent and technology, attracting more than 210,000 talents, with the number of sci-tech leading talents and teams exceeding 800. The district has now gathered 444 high-tech enterprises, 1,574 private technology companies at the provincial level and over 1,000 research institutes. Its investment in R&D accounted for more than 3.5 percent of the GDP. The number of patents per 10,000 people is 97, four times the average provincial level.

Goals

In the future, SND will continue promoting balanced economic, political, cultural, social, and ecological progress and coordinated implementation of the Four-Pronged Comprehensive Strategy. It will work on sustainable economic growth, reform, structural adjustment, livelihood improvement and risk prevention, with a focus on supply-side structural reform, in an attempt to become a model of innovation-driven development.