TEDA’s major indexes remain national leaders

Tianjin Economic and Technological Development Area (abbreviated “TEDA”, phonetically “Taida” in Chinese) is one of the first state-level development zones approved by China’s State Council in 1984. In August 1986, Comrade Deng Xiaoping, chief architect of China’s reform and opening-up, visited TEDA and handwrote an inscription “a promising development zone”, which has become a motto and inspiration for the zone.

TEDA started from a salt flat with an annual output of only 3 million CNY to become the largest development area with the highest degree of export-orientatation and the best comprehensive investment environment in China, contributing its own fair share to the development of Binhai New Area.

In the “12th Five-Year Plan” period, the development area, facing the difficult and ever-changing macroeconomic situation, promoted comprehensive restructuring, comprehensively deepened reforms and opening-up, improved the regional construction and function layout, created an international, modern, eco-complex of advanced industries and new city, and completed the tasks laid out by the “12th Five-Year Plan”. In the “12th Five-Year Plan” period, the GDP grew to over 130 billion CNY in the development area, or an average annual growth rate of 18%; public budget revenue grew by an average of 12.0% annually; total fixed asset investment totaled more than 340 billion CNY, doubling that in the “11th Five-Year Plan” period; main economic indexes quadrupled compared to those in 2005. Local GDP, large-scale industrial output and other indexes led the nation in all national development zones. The development area continues to play a forefront role in Binhai New Area. Regional comprehensive strength has markedly increased.

In the development area, after the transformation and upgrading, economic structure was significantly optimized: through the vigorous implementation of advanced manufacturing doubling plan and strategic emerging industries and modern service industry great leap forward plan, the zone formed electronics and automotive industries that both exceeded 150 billion CNY in output, petrochemical, equipment and food that exceeded 50 billion CNY in output. Businesses attracted include Volkswagen transmission, Volkswagen base in North China, Sinopec LNG, Zhongsha new materials and Chengxing Group. The number of enterprises with sales over ten billion CNY reached 24.

In the zone, “high cost of land” has a new definition: Operative companies have a ratio of 16.5 acres per 100 million CNY output; labor productivity is about 550,000 CNY per person; per 10,000 CNY energy consumption and fresh water consumption lead the nation. Regional industry has its own characteristics. Different regions complete each other on functions. The zone successfully hit major pollutant emission control targets; urban green coverage rate reached 27.1%; the zone is among the first list of low-carbon pilot industrial parks and circular demonstration areas. In the five years, cumulative foreign capital utilized reached a total of over 27 billion US dollars.

In the zone, promoting regional development via innovation of technology has become the new norm: there are over 5,500 SMEs, more than 400 “little giants”, and more than 300 national high-tech enterprises. The number of public companies reached 25 compared to that in the “11th Five-Year Plan” period; they increased by 3.5 times, 2.5 times, 0.75 times and 4 times, respectively. The number of public innovation spaces reached 21, and incubator areas reached 1.1 million square meters. In the “12th Five-Year Plan” period, over 8,000 patents were approved in areas of supercomputing, membrane technology, stem cells and biochips, leading the country. 38 products were selected as the city’s “secret weapons”. Product innovations continued to emerge.

2016 is the first year of the “13th Five-Year Plan” period. In the next five years, the development area will vigorously promote the transformation and upgrading together with innovation and development. Planned average annual GDP growth rate is well over 10%. On top of the nine leading industries, we’ll build a “5+1+N” high-end industrial system. “5” refers to the ambition to build five 100 billion CNY industries totaling over 1 trillion US dollars. These industries include electronic information, automobile manufacturing and petrochemical, the output of each would exceed 300 billion CNY. Equipment manufacturing and medicine would be 2 clusters that will exceed 150 billion CNY each. “1” refers to the ambition to build a high level service cluster mainly composed of those from the service the industry. Financial services and modern trade services will be over 30 billion CNY. Modern logistics, business services, information services and technology services will add up to 15 billion CNY. By the end of the “13th Five-Year Plan” Period, 50 companies will reach revenues of 10 billion CNY; the number of SMEs will be over 10,000. Both numbers double those in 2015.