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Shenzhen: China's Rising High-Tech Star
A fishing village 20 years ago, Shenzhen now has become one of China's three leading high-tech development centers like Beijing and Shanghai. And the city has plans to have half of its industrial output value come from the high-tech sector in five years.
The young city, which sees Hong Kong across a river, has strong momentum for high-tech development though the high-tech industry only took off in the past decade, according to Chen Zhangliang, a vice president of China's renowned Beijing University.
Statistics show the annual output value of Shenzhen's high and new industry averaged 56 percent in the last nine years. In 1999, the high-tech sector had an industrial output value of 82 billion yuan, accounting for 40.5 percent of the city's total.
This means a contribution of four percentage points to the growth of Shenzhen's gross domestic product (GDP), and shows the high-tech industry has become the primary powerhouse of the local economy, said a city government official.
By the year 2005, the industrial output value of Shenzhen's high-tech products will account for half of the city's total, said Mayor Yu Youjun.
The city government will do everything it can to create favorable conditions for the growth of the high-tech industry, the mayor said.
"The local government works very efficiently," said Chen Zhangliang, who heads a research and production center in the Shenzhen High-Tech Industrial Park.
The center, set up one year ago with investment from Beijing University, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and the Shenzhen city government, is engaged in projects related to biology, information, energy and the environment.
It was built in only a few months with the strong support of the local government, Chen said, adding that Shenzhen has become Beijing University's most important high-tech industrial base outside Beijing.
Attracting big name universities and research institutes from other parts of the country is one of the strategies of the Shenzhen city government for high-tech development.
At present, Qinghua University, Harbin Industry University and 33 other Chinese institutions of higher learning have also established cooperative ties with Shenzhen or research and production bases in the city, attracting a big number of talent from across the country.
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