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Beijing tech and innovation hub aims to fulfill capital's and country's plans, Liu Xiangrui reports.
Zhongguancun National Innovation Demonstration Zone is playing an increasingly important role in Beijing's effort to become a technology and innovation hub and to center its economic structure on high-end industries.
As a place of origin for the nation's strategic emerging industries, Zhongguancun is rich in innovative resources and has a solid foundation for the development of high-end industries.
For many years, it has driven the growth of strategic emerging industries by combining the nation's plans with its own advantages.
During the first half of this year, industrial enterprises above a designated size in Zhongguancun Science and Technology Park brought in 1.4 trillion yuan ($229 billion) of revenue.
This marked a year-on-year increase of 15.8 percent and accounted for one fourth of Beijing's overall figure.
Firms in the park continued rapid and stable growth since the start of the year and hit total profits of 116.2 billion yuan and contributed 88.3 billion yuan in tax, increases of 41.2 percent and 30.3 percent respectively compared to last year.
High-tech companies sustained fast growth and reached export volumes worth $15.2 billion - a jump of 23.7 percent compared with last year, despite the general export slowdown nationwide.
The figure accounted for more than 40 percent of Beijing's exports. Sectors including digital mobile devices, integrated circuits and flat panel displays expect positive exports to continue.
Zhongguancun has constantly sought to further enhance its industrial structure.
Enterprises in the area have gradually gained global success in a range of high-tech sectors. Firms made major breakthroughs in strategic new technologies such as fourth generation communication technology, mobile Internet, high-end LCD and navigation applications.
Datang Telecom led the establishment of the TD-LTE standard - one of the two major international 4G communication standards. Lenovo and Xiaomi saw fast growth in the field of intelligent mobile devices and their shipments ranked in the global top ten.
In recent years, high-tech companies in the park showed notable improvements in development momentum and played more important roles in leading innovation.
Revenues of leading enterprises like Lenovo, JD.com, Baidu, and Tsinghua Holdings have already or almost reached annual income scales of 100 billion yuan and have become international players in high-end industries.
In 2013, 2,278 enterprises in Zhongguancun had annual revenue increases of 50 percent. They accounted for 15 percent of all the companies in the region.
Zhongguancun has given strong economic impetus to surrounding regions and its high-tech enterprises generated more than one fourth of Beijing's economic growth.
The series of industrial parks in different areas of Beijing make greater contributions to the local economy and play important roles in upgrading the region's industrial structure.
The park has established strategic cooperative relations with 54 regions in 21 provinces across China.
In 2012, about 1 trillion yuan in consolidated earnings of Zhongguancun's listed companies were made outside Beijing.
Service industries like information transmission, software and technological services are booming.
In the first half of the year, the modern service industry brought in 950 billion yuan. This accounted for 65.8 percent of the demonstration zone's total income and represented a year-on-year growth of 21.3 percent.
An innovation system based on industrial clusters is taking shape. Zhongguancun has already formed an industrial structure led by clusters of strategic emerging industries.
During the first two quarters of the year, six advantageous industrial clusters and another four for potential industries in the park brought in 1 trillion yuan, 69.5 percent of Zhongguancun's total income.
Cross-boundary integration of industries in Zhongguancun has created new growth points.
For example, Internet giant Baidu ventured into industries including film and television, tourism and e-commerce by merging iQIYI.com, Qunar.com, 91.com, Nuomi.com and Cheetah Mobile.
Industries in the region have also gone greener. In the past seven years, energy consumption per unit fell by 50 percent. The level was equal to one fifth of Beijing's general figure during the same period and one tenth of the national average.
Energy consumption per unit in Zhongguancun is expected to fall by five percent annually.
To serve China's and Beijing's strategic needs, the park aims to boost cutting-edge new industries, such as network information security, smart homes, environment management, health care, technological services, wearable intelligent devices, remote medical treatment and artificial intelligence robots.
It plans to strengthen its support policies and streamline its resources to incubate promising research results, original technologies and innovative businesses.
To construct a network of integrated innovation among enterprises along the industrial chain, the park will cooperate with leading enterprises to establish open laboratories and a range of innovation platforms for generic technology.
Contact the writer at liuxiangrui@chinadaily.com.cn
