Science and technology driving development

Shanghai's Minhang District will further drive its development with science and technology innovation, officials told a news conference on Tuesday.

“Science and technology innovation is an important strength in Minhang,” said Ni Yaoming, Party secretary of the district. “That’s why Minhang was named in 2017 by the Ministry of Science and Technology as a demonstration zone for transferring research achievements into applications.”

The district hosts two prestigious universities – Shanghai Jiao Tong University and East China Normal University – and more than 164 city- or national-level professional research institutions, accounting for 12 percent of the total in Shanghai. About 9.47 percent of the district’s GDP is invested in research and development, 5.47 percentage points higher than the city average.

Ni said the district has an abundance of talent, including more than 60 academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Engineering, and its southern area alone accommodates more than 130,000 science and technology staff in colleges, research institutions, enterprises and industrial parks.

Scientists in Minhang won 85 awards at city and national level last year, accounting for a fourth of the total in Shanghai. Every 10,000 Minhang residents share more than 76 invention patents, which is 42.1 percent higher than the city average.

Ni said Minhang also has a great ecology for scientific innovation.

“We’ve established a total of 24 innovation-related professional service platforms, such as the south branch of the Shanghai Intellectual Property Exchange Center, the East China Copyright Registration Center and Shanghai International Technology Exchange Center,” Ni said. 

“We’ve also invested 6.2 billion yuan to establish the Hongqiao Venture Capital Harbor, and it has made investments in 725 programs and set up a 1-billion-yuan foundation to accelerate transferring research findings into applications. Meanwhile, we’ve also introduced policies related to industries, talent and financing to attract programs to settle down in Minhang, encourage enterprises to make innovation and promote transformation of innovation achievements into application.

Ti Gong

“The district also has plenty of industrial parks and incubators to make such transformation possible. It has about 20 high-tech industrial zones, such as the Zizhu Hi-Tech Park, the only privately run and top 12th national-level high-tech parks in China, Minhang Economic and Technology Development Zone, the first of its kind set up in the country, the neoBay innovation cluster, the artificial intelligence innovation experimental zone in Maqiao Town and the Xinzhuang Industry Park.

“With current areas of 65.62 square kilometers listed as national-level high-tech industrial zones, we will prepare another 4 square kilometers to land new industrial programs,” Ni said.

He said the district had cultivated a number of innovative enterprises to drive the development of high-end manufacturing.

The industry output value in Minhang accounts for 9.21 percent of the city's total, he said, and about 41.9 percent of the value is produced by strategic emerging industries. Among them, the biomedicine industry grows extremely prosperous despite of the slowdown of economic growth. 

In the first half of this year, 60 large-scale biomedicine enterprises in Minhang produced nearly 10.96 billion yuan of output value, a 2.5 percent growth from the same period last year.

“As a key force for Shanghai’s efforts in developing itself into a global center for science and technology innovation, Minhang will integrate resources to promote industrial innovation capacity, accelerate the establishment of an international innovation center and make innovation a new brand of the district,” Ni said.