Science fair builds ties around Yangtze River Delta region
The opening ceremony of the first Scientific Technology Fair for the Yangtze River Delta Region.
Three cities jointly launched a platform at the opening ceremony of the first Scientific Technology Fair for the Yangtze River Delta Region to boost regional cooperation.
The platform, which aims to provide more facilities for science and technology cooperation among Jiading, Wenzhou in Zhejiang Province and Suzhou in Jiangsu Province was set up on Wednesday.
More than 130 universities and institutes have joined the platform, providing more than 1,700 research facilities and 309 services to the companies. The platform aims to break the regional barrier among the three cities in science and technology cooperation.
The fair, which focuses on information technology, new energy, high-end manufacturing, and health care industry, has attracted 176 companies from Jiading, Suzhou and Wenzhou.
The resource sharing platform will issue “vouchers” to companies in the region to allow them to better cooperate with other companies and institutes.
“Differing financial systems in different cities has long been a problem preventing regional cooperation,” Shen Huadi, deputy district head of Jiading, said. “The platform is our first step for further collaboration.”
Meanwhile, an automobile industry alliance of the Yangtze River Delta area was also set up at the fair. Shen said many competitive automobile manufacturers are located in the delta region, but for a very long time there hasn’t been an effective mechanism to integrate each enterprise’s strengths.
The alliance will establish labs and research centers for manufacturers in the region to communicate and transform achievements from the lab to the factory.
Electric automobile manufacturer Nio brought its ES8 SUV to the fair. “I think it is more important for us to share than to compete,” said Zhang Kaipeng from the company.
“I think integration is the trend for the future,” said Wang Chenghao, manager of WPG Smart Water Public Corporation. Wang said WPG started its business with water conveying pumps but soon realized the market was asking for more.
“What the clients want is a complete solution from the source of water to water coming out of a tap,” Wang said. “This is a good chance for us to learn, even from companies in another field.”
Cao Xu, a sales manager of Zhejiang Granbo Laser Technology Corporation from Wenzhou, told Shanghai Daily that more than six companies from Shanghai and Suzhou had made enquiries about their laser marking machines.
“Even if they don’t really place an order in the end, this opportunity for us to showcase is also quite good,” Cao smiled.
On the first day of the fair, seven pieces of intellectual property were sold to companies from the three cities at an auction.
Chang Jianfei from Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, which owned one of the pieces of intellectual property, said such an open auction saved the researchers a lot of time finding the right buyer for their technology.
The fair will run until Friday.
