Shenyang zone expands high-tech offerings

Area now includes major innovative resources and related service platforms

The Shenyang High-Tech Zone in Northeast China's Liaoning province is building itself into a regional birthplace of innovative technologies, a pilot area for new and old kinetic energy conversion and a demonstration zone for the development of strategic emerging industries, senior officials said.

The zone was established in 1988 and then approved by the State Council in 1991 to become one of the national high-tech industrial development zones.

Zhang Shuwei, a member of the zone's Party working committee, said the Shenyang High-Tech Zone prioritizes high technology and innovation in its development. It has witnessed remarkable improvements in its capacity to innovate as well as in its business environment in recent years, after it accelerated the implementation of an innovation-driven strategy.

The zone now includes a group of major innovative resources and related service platforms. It boasts many national key universities and institutes, such as Shenyang Ligong University, Northeastern University, Shenyang Jianzhu University and two institutes of the Chinese Academy of Sciences: the Institute of Metal Research and the Shenyang Institute of Automation.

It is home to 272 research institutions, including 76 key labs, 99 innovation centers and 68 enterprise technology centers. The institutions have achieved important scientific outcomes in such fields as deep-sea exploration robots, nano-metal, advanced carbon materials and amorphous materials.

As for technology services, the zone has a total of 333 agencies providing many different types of services covering finance, technology transfer, inspection and testing, and intellectual property rights.

They combined to serve a total of 786 high-tech companies and 1,152 small and medium-sized science companies in the zone through the end of 2020.

Last year, enterprises in the zone signed 2,024 technology contracts, accounting for 25 percent of the city's total. They reached a technology contract turnover of 12.1 billion yuan($1.85 billion), accounting for about 40 percent of the city's total.

"We are planning to construct a science town in Shanyang's Hunnan district, of which major projects will include innovation centers of material science, intelligent manufacturing and life and health," Zhang said.

For years, the Shenyang High-Tech Zone has made great efforts in developing high-end manufacturing, new-generation information technologies and digital economy. It has built 12 industrial parks covering sectors like robots, integrated circuit equipment, digital medical devices and civil aviation. Based on its existing industrial advantages, the zone in the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25) aims to "strengthen six leading industries of new-generation information technologies, high-end manufacturing, new energy vehicle, life and health, airport economy and culture and sports".

Wu Yongcontributed to this story.

haonan@chinadaily.com.cn