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Haidian district, as the core area of Zhongguancun, as well as Beijing and even the country's technological innovation forefront, has been accelerating the development of Zhongguancun National Innovation Demonstration Zone and centering its economic vision on high-end industries, according to Meng Jingwei, deputy director of Haidian district government.
He reviewed the development of Haidian district last year and outlined the planned future direction of the Zone in a press conference of the Fifth Session of the 15th Haidian District People's Congress held in Beijing on Jan 12.
The economy of Haidian district sustained fast growth last year. The full-year gross regional production is expected to reach 416.1 billion yuan ($67.12 billion), a year-on-year growth of 8.5 percent; the per capita disposable income of urban residents to reach 50,000 yuan, increasing 9 percent, and per capita net income of rural residents to reach 27,000 yuan, up 9.5 percent. Consumption has become a major force that drives the growth of the regional economy. The district's social total retail sales of consumer goods reached 176 billion yuan, an increase of 9 percent year-on-year.
Haidian district has been optimizing and upgrading its industries. The proportion of the tertiary industry rose to 87 percent. Five industries covering information services, technology services, finance and education accounted for almost 70 percent of total economic output. The growth rate of strategic emerging industry remained over 20 percent, and culture creative industry revenues accounted for over 40 percent of Beijing's overall figure.
At present, there are 12,000 high-tech enterprises in Zhongguancun, accounting for half of the total number in Beijing. Those enterprises achieved revenue of 1.4 trillion yuan with a year-on-year increase of 15 percent，accounting for 40 percent of the total in Zhongguancun. Technology contracts amounted to 136.7 billion yuan, up 9.5 percent from previous year.
Zhongguancun has developed a number of emerging industry clusters where many top innovation personnel gathered, such as Lei Jun, founder of Xiaomi and Deng Zhonghan, president of Vimicro. Lenovo, Xiaomi and other innovative companies have grown into famous brands with global influence.
Zhongguancun has become a main hub for the emerging industry, as well as a place where entrepreneurs can turn their ideas into reality.
In 2014, Zhongguancun made extensive efforts to speed up the construction of the Zhongguancun Software City, Zhongguancun Innovation Street, the IPR and Standardization Street, and the Technology Financial Street.
Zhongguancun Software City, with a planned total area of 31.3 square kilometers, aims to build a flagship scientific innovation center for the whole country and promote the development of the emerging industry. By 2020, the area will develop into a high-end industrial functional hub based on software and information services industries. It will also emerge as a demonstration area that showcases the integration of industrial production and city functions. It will be an eco-friendly area and offer creative business environment.
As a result of the industrial adjustment and the completion of the second-phase construction, the industrial space of Zhongguancun Science Park has expanded by 253,000 square meters. The sites for the Xiaomi Science Park and the Zhongguancun Mobile Intelligence Innovation Service Park have been cleaned up, and the Zhongguancun Xisanqi Software Park is under planning. A software enterprises development base has been launched in Tsinghua Tongfang Science Park, where more than 30 enterprises have already moved in.
So far, nearly 1,800 enterprises in the software and information service industries are based in the core area of Zhongguancun, accounting for more than 60 percent of the total in Beijing.
Zhongguancun Innovation Street in Zhongguancun's western area opened on June 12, 2014, making the park even more attractive to start-ups and young entrepreneurs. The street aims to improve regional innovation environment, stimulate innovation and entrepreneurship and develop into a science and technology innovation center in China and rest of the the world.
The street has brought together 16 innovation service institutes, such as Garage Coffee, 36 Kr and 3W Cafe, and formed an entrepreneurship ecological system that covers investment and finance matching, business model construction, team integration, and media information. The number of angel investors and investment institutes working on the street has surpassed 2,000. About 4,000 start-up teams have settled there and 123 teams have received financing, totaling at 615 million yuan corresponding to 5 million yuan on average.
The good business environment has attracted numerous entrepreneurs to Haidian, which has become an ideal place for innovation and start-up businesses in China.
The IPR and Standardization Street is meant to be a cluster for high-end intellectual property agencies and the leading area for IPR application. It aims to create a high-grade, high-precision and advanced economic structure by tightly grasping core intellectual property rights. At present, over 100 IPR service agencies have gathered in the street. In 2014, the total turnover of technical contracts reached 136.7 billion yuan, up 9.5 percent from the previous year. The technology trading market starts branching out to the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area and radiating to the whole country.
The Technology Financial Street is planned to be the center of innovation capital, factor markets, and Internet finance innovation. So far, nearly 2,300 financial institutions of various types have concentrated in Zhongguancun's western area and revenues from taxation of the financial sector accounts for 48 percent of the total in Haidian district.
In the next stage, Zhongguancun will make more efforts to help Beijing build a high-grade, high-precision, and advanced economic structure. It will implement the innovation-driven development strategy and develop into a center for entrepreneurship, a hotbed for strategic emerging industry as well as a scientific and innovation center with global influence.
