Xinzhuang redevelops to drive high-end manufacturing

Ti Gong

Properties and land of low efficient use in Xinzhuang Industrial Park in Minhang District are being redeveloped to attract high-end manufacturing and biomedicine projects for better revenue and higher regional growth.

A pioneering site for the advanced manufacturing sector, the industrial park gathered more than 1,600 entity enterprises over the past three decades, with both its gross value of large-scale industrial output and its gross merchandise value achieving hundreds of billions of yuan annually for three consecutive years.

In spite of these achievements, the park has the dilemma of diminishing land for construction, resulting in a slowdown of industrial growth.

Last October, the Ministry of Natural Resources passed a guideline on redeveloping properties and land of low efficient use and Shanghai became one of its trial cities.

Following the guideline, there have been improvements. In Xinzhuang Industrial Park a plot of land in stock for more than 20 years was reinvigorated by a global pharmaceutical giant Moderna project and an old factory with low economic yield for years was redeveloped as an industrial park, a regional headquarters and a research center respectively for two Fortune Global 500 companies.

Moderna's chief executive officer, Stéphane Bancel, decided during a visit to Shanghai last April to build his company's largest factory in Xinzhuang Industrial Park.

Bancel's decision came as he took fancy to a plot of 18 square hectares. He knew the industrial park before as an upstream supplier of Moderna, Hongene Biotech, is based here, according to Xie Tingyan, an investment recruitment manager at the park.

The land had been held in stock for years. Officials negotiated with the company involved and it finally agreed at the end of 2022 to return the plot to the government.

"We responded to their concerns on tax and financial refunds, and some procedure practices. To reinvigorate some stock land resources, the region as a whole can plan its next industrial development more resourcefully," said Pan Ying, head of the park's land management bureau.

The land at 611 Chunguang Road was another example of redeveloping low-efficient land in the industrial park.

The 1.2-hectare plot used to belong to a cosmetic company which had been generating low tax revenue for years. It expressed a willingness to give up its land use right in 2018.

Now its No. 1 Building has been customized for Toyota-Gosei-China and No. 2 Building is rented by Bosch. Tax revenue is expected to rise to 200 million yuan (US$27.8 million) from hundreds of thousands of yuan previously.

In August last year, Bosch Rexroth opened its industrial park in the park. In September, Toyota-Gosei-China set up its Chinese headquarters and research center also inside the park.