People

Sowing seeds

(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-09-30 07:41

For years, the Chinese economy has thrived mainly on the efficient harnessing of a plentiful supply of labor, land and other resources.

This is changing.

As China celebrates its 60th anniversary of nation building, industry and government are joining hands to pursue a new breakthrough in economic growth through innovation.

It is not going to be easy. As the cost of labor, land and coal-fired energy remains low, there is little incentive for industry - especially the private sector made up of millions of small to medium-sized enterprises in the delta regions of the Yangtze River and Pearl River - to invest in research and development of new products and processes.

Time line  Creativity as commodity

Government planners have long recognized that sustainable economic growth can only be assured by constantly moving up the value-added chain from factory-level processing to design and marketing. To overcome the industry's inertia, the government has established various agencies to provide technical and other assistances to promote creativity.

At the forefront of this drive for innovation is Shanghai, the service center of the industrial heartland of the vast Yangtze River delta region that extends through several provinces in Central China. The Shanghai municipal government has established throughout the city various pockets of creativity and innovation. These are small communities that provide premises at affordable rents for creative talents and a pleasant environment where they can gather to exchange ideas.

The city's Taikang Road Creative Park takes a novel approach to nurturing creativity.

Ten years ago, Taikang Road was a typical Shanghai lane community, full of the noise and smells from families living within whispering distance of each other.

Housewives haggled over the price of live chickens and outdoor markets; men smoked cigarettes and slapped cards on courtyard tables.

Today, with more than 400 galleries, boutique shops and cafes run by people from more than 20 countries and massive plans on the way, Taikang Road has developed into a hub for creative industry.

The long path of this creative park's development stretches back to 1999, when world-renowned painter Chen Yifei and several other artists and fashion designers set up studios in old factory workshops and the Shikumen houses originally built in the 1920s. Around 100 shops and cafes moved in after the early buzz. But development stopped a few years after the district announced plans to tear down the old flats and warehouses to create space for a commercial real estate development.

"We aim to complete a community that is commercially based, culture-orientated and tourist-focused," says Wu Meisen, the planning director of the Taikang Road Creative Industry Center.

The Factory is another such district.

As a creative churner, the Factory is centered around a refurbished slaughter house of architectural design representative of the 1930s. The entire compound provides a space for young minds and top marketers to chat about developing ideas that are beginning to be taken seriously by marketers of foreign and local brands exclusively targeting younger patrons.

For example, a design company in the Factory recently hosted a brainstorming session for Pepsi's global marketing team, who came to Shanghai looking for inspiration on how to freshen up their strategy in approaching post-'80s consumers.

As China's appetite for homegrown products grows, the Factory's business model is being viewed as having the potential to flourish in a city like Shanghai, where international companies are open to innovative marketing approaches.

With the support and cooperation of the Shanghai municipal government, the Ministry of Science and Technology has also established jointly with Shanghai's Tongji University for what it calls "a global platform of science and technology management research and communication".