Tech zone moves up China's rankings list
A Songjiang Economic and Technological Development Zone annual conference
China's commerce ministry has ranked the Songjiang Economic and Technological Development Zone as 38th out of 217 such zones in 2021.
The Songjiang zone moved up 32 places from 2020, with its foreign trade performance ranked a breakthrough No. 3 nationwide.
"The leapfrog progress from No. 101 in 2018, to No. 79 in 2019, No. 70 in 2020 to No. 38 in 2021 is a hard-won battle," said Gu Jun, chairman of the Shanghai Songjiang Economic and Technological Development Zone Construction Co.
The annual appraisal by the Ministry of Commerce judges in five categories, namely, industrial foundation, sci-tech innovation, regional contribution, environment protection and administrative efficiency, as well as 53 sub-categories including GDP, total exports and the number of high-tech companies. Sci-tech innovation and a good business environment helped boost Songjiang's ranking.
In 2021 a new generation of leading or new industries like electronic information, new material, new-energy vehicles and biomedicine helped the zone create 220 billion yuan worth (US$34.738 billion) of output value, accounting for 75.8 percent of the total industrial output value of the zone.
"Meiji Seika signed its contract of launching a new ice cream production line in the zone in December 2021, and construction work started in January this year," said Zhang Lei, a government official with the local corporate service center.
The zone is the first city-level facility of its kind in suburban Shanghai.
Soon after its establishment in April 1992, the zone welcomed its first batch of investors – corporate officials from Japanese firm Toyo Denso.
They suggested the zone connect the Xinsong Highway with Rongle Road E. as a prerequisite for the company setting up a new factory here.
Within a year, the roads were connected.
The zone's efficiency and reliability won the thumbs-up from Toyo Denso.
Since then, businessmen from Japan and other countries have located their businesses in the Songjiang zone.
Gum sales of Mars Wrigley's Songjiang factory dropped in the past two years due to the pandemic. The zone offered it supportive policies and helped it integrate supply chains, according to Fabio Alves Da Silva, senior factory director of Mars Wrigley Shanghai.
The company also resumed operations quite early in 2020 thanks to the supportive policies.
