High-quality development of headquarters firms promoted

06 30, 2021

Qualified headquarters enterprises set up in Shenzhen can enjoy a slew of benefits such as the setting-up rewards, contribution rewards, and rental and office space purchasing subsidies, according to the new measures issued in the latest government gazette.The measures aim to encourage the high-quality development of enterprises whose headquarters or regional headquarters are in Shenzhen and make adjustments identifying headquarters enterprises that can enjoy the preferential policies, Shenzhen Special Zone Daily reported.According to the measures, for newly introduced headquarters enterprises that meet certain requirements in registered capital and output value and realize their committed output value within the commitment period, they will be given a setting-up reward of 5 million yuan (US$772,500) when they fulfill their commitment in the second and third year, respectively.Registered headquarters enterprises may apply for the contribution reward given that they have been continuously operating from one year to more than one year, have maintained positive revenue growth and have met the prescribed conditions for three consecutive years.The contribution reward in principle will be no more than 20 million yuan.For headquarters enterprises without their own office space in Shenzhen, if they rent the office space for their own use, they will be subsidized 50 percent of the actual rent every year, no more than five years at most.The annual subsidy will not exceed 1.5 million yuan, as per the measures.A one-off subsidy of 10 percent of the housing price will be given to headquarters enterprises which purchase an office space for their own use for the first time. The maximum subsidy is 50 million yuan.Qualified headquarters enterprises can also apply to rent or purchase talent housing for their senior executives, according to the measures.

City's foreign trade grows 27% in first 4 months

05 25, 2021

Shenzhen's foreign trade between January and April reached 1.05 trillion yuan (US$163 billion), up 27 percent year on year, statistics from Shenzhen Customs showed yesterday.Of the total, exports hit 567.8 billion yuan, up 33.6 percent, and imports amounted to 480 billion yuan, up 20.1 percent.General trade has kept rising for six straight months since its recovery at the end of 2020 and contributed 49.8 percent to the city's total foreign trade during the four months.Processing trade reached 280 billion yuan, up 32.4 percent.Trade with Shenzhen's 10 major partner economies, except South Korea, has also kept rising. The trade volume with Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) countries, ASEAN members and Eastern European countries reached 232.7 billion yuan, 160.1 billion yuan and 18.99 billion yuan, which increased 20 percent, 18.2 percent and 43 percent, respectively.Trade with RCEP countries (partly overlapping with BRI countries), reached 274.9 billion yuan, up 16.7 percent.With the recovery of the overseas market, exports of consumer electronic products also rose.Between January and April, exports of mechanical and electrical products in the city hit 455.4 billion yuan, up 37.2 percent year on year, making up 80.2 percent of the city's total exports. Exports of mobile phones and household appliances increased 50 percent while that of panel computers increased 199.9 percent.Mechanical and electrical products contributed 80 percent to the city's total imports during the period.Imports of electronic components, LCD panels and spare parts for audio and visual equipment reached 251.6 billion yuan, up 21.6 percent.

Strategies laid out for future industries

04 28, 2021

Shenzhen will implement a development program led by future industries and arrange industrial layout in 6G, quantum technologies, deep sea and space explorations, automated driving and intelligent Internet of vehicles, according to a report delivered by Shenzhen Party chief Wang Weizhong at the seventh Shenzhen Municipal Congress of the Communist Party of China yesterday."Shenzhen will try to be a pioneering demonstrator in constructing new development pattern and promoting high-quality development by focusing on real economy," Wang said.To achieve the goal, the city will implement a strategy to forge full-industry chain by developing leading enterprises in the industrial ecology, making headquarters economy bigger and stronger and cultivating a batch of specialized, refined, differentiated and innovative small- and medium-sized enterprises along the industrial chain.The city will also initiate an action to foster enterprise clusters in advanced manufacturing covering next-generation communications, new materials, intelligent equipment, high-end medical apparatus, biopharmacy and new energy automobiles. The city will improve the competitiveness of its modern service industry and improve the capability of traditional industries like garments, timepieces, gold and jewelries through innovations in designs and research.The city will implement strategies of Internet development and build a State-level industrial Internet platform. It will implement a new engine strategy to promote development of industrial digitalization by combining 5G+8K+AI+ Cloud technologies.It will promote 5G applications in different industries. By 2025, the added value of the core industries in the digital economy will account for more than 31 percent of the city's GDP.

City leads country in information technology

04 12, 2021

A total of 21 enterprises from Shenzhen had been chosen into the top 100 electronic information enterprises in 2020 in China, ranking first among Chinese cities, a symposium on the development of information innovation application of Shenzhen, an event of the Ninth China Information Technology Exposition (2021 CITE), said.The industrial scale of Shenzhen's information industry reached 2.8 trillion yuan (US$427.34 billion) in 2020, the first among Chinese cities, and 11 enterprises had been selected into the top 100 software enterprises of 2019 in China, ranking second among Chinese major cities.As a city with a complete information innovation and application industrial chain, Shenzhen is speeding up the construction of innovation carriers like the Kunpeng industrial congregation areas.The city has unveiled an action plan (2020-2022) for the construction of the Kunpeng industrial demonstration area and set aside a special fund of 500 million yuan for basic software and applied software development. The special fund underpins Kunpeng's information technology construction and the development of industrial software like CAD, CAE and EDA. The Kunpeng innovation system will consist of Shenzhen Bay Innovation Center, Huawei Research and Development Center, subcenters in each district, key industry bases and laboratories.At the 2021 CITE, which wrapped up yesterday, the Shenzhen Industry and Information Bureau set up booths at Hall 2 of the Shenzhen Convention and Exhibition Center to show the application of information technologies in government administration, finance, energy, transportation and industrial control.

Measures to ease SZ market access on the way: NDRC

04 09, 2021

The Central Government is drafting special measures to ease market access in Shenzhen and Hengqin Free Trade Zone in Zhuhai City, a senior official with the country's economic planner said Thursday.Xu Shanchang, head of the general economic system reform department of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), made the remarks at a press conference in Beijing. At the conference, a guideline to ease market access in the southernmost province of Hainan was unveiled in the country's latest efforts to build the resort island into a globally influential, high-level free trade port.Xu said the guideline will provide a reference for Shenzhen and Hengqin, which are vital to the development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and are better test fields for further reform and opening up. He stressed local conditions will also be taken into consideration when making future policies.The guideline, jointly released by the NDRC and the Ministry of Commerce, detailed a slew of measures to ease market access in the pharmaceutical and health sectors, optimize financial market entries and development environment, and promote wider entry into fields of culture and education.China will support innovative development of domestically manufactured high-end medical equipment and high-end medical beauty industry in Hainan, as well as promote online sales of prescription drugs, the guideline said.Authorities will support Hainan in building charging stations and battery swapping facilities across the island for new-energy vehicles and will push for the application of autonomous driving technology.China will also support Hainan in encouraging firms — both domestic and foreign — to develop new drugs, the NDRC said, adding that it will push for an international center for transplantation sciences in the southern province.An investment fund dedicated to the health care industry is also going to be set up, and the Central Government may also delegate the job of approving domestic online games to Hainan, the NDRC said.The government also has plans to step up the support given for upgrading the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site into a "world-class" site for commercial spacecrafts.Last June, China gave the status of a free trade port to Hainan, which it aims to make fully functional by 2035, so it can build an offshore center of trade and finance for streamlining the flow of commodities, capital and talent.In March last year, the NDRC said it will formulate and introduce special measures to relax market access in Hainan and Shenzhen this year.

City ranks No. 1 in investment vitality

03 25, 2021

Shenzhen ranks first in investment vitality among Chinese cities, a report released Tuesday by an enterprise database website www.tianyancha.com showed.According to the data between 2011 and 2020 from over 28 emerging industries and 36 key cities, the report showed the number of enterprises in the 36 cities increased by an average of 259 percent.By 2020, 26 cities each had more than 1 million enterprises.Shenzhen, Shanghai, Beijing and Nanjing were the top four in terms of the number of enterprises. The 36 cities include four municipalities directly under the Central Government, 27 provincial capital cities and five cities with independent planning status regarding social and economic development.The report showed Shenzhen has taken the lead in artificial intelligence and hardware. The number of enterprises engaged in artificial intelligence has increased from 2,000 in 2011 to 67,000 in 2020, or 6,000 enterprises a year.The emerging industries also attracted young people. At the end of 2019, the number of permanent residents was 13.43 million, 412,200 more than the previous year.The balances of Shenzhen banks reached 10.19 trillion yuan (US$1.56 trillion) by the end of 2020, making Shenzhen the third city following Beijing and Shanghai whose deposit scale reached over 10 trillion yuan.Nanjing overtook Guangzhou to secure its fourth position because the number of registered companies in Nanjing kept an annual growth rate of 12 percent between 2016 and 2020.The report also studied five city clusters, namely the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei city cluster, the Yangtze River Delta city cluster, the Pearl River Delta city cluster, the Chengdu-Chongqing city cluster and the city cluster of Yangtze River Middle Reaches that has Wuhan, Changsha, Nanchang and Hefei as the central cities.The report showed 60 percent of the enterprises moved to the city clusters where there are more opportunities and 50 percent of the investments came from these city clusters.

SZ advances in financial city ranking

03 19, 2021

Shenzhen advanced one leg up to No. 8 of the Global Financial Centers Index (GFCI) 29 ranking. The ranking was released Wednesday by Z/Yen Group in partnership with the China Development Institute (CDI). Out of 114 financial centers in the list, four are Chinese cities and all are in the top 10.The index looks at 143 instrumental factors provided by third parties such as the World Bank, the Economist Intelligence Unit and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the United Nations.It was made based on 65,507 assessments of financial centers provided by 10,774 respondents to the GFCI online questionnaire.The latest edition evaluated and ranked the world's major financial centers in terms of business environment, human resources, infrastructure, financial industry level, and prestige.New York, London and Shanghai took the top three spots, while Hong Kong moved up a spot to fourth. Singapore is in fifth, while Tokyo dropped three places down from fourth to seventh. Frankfurt replaced San Francisco by climbing up seven places into the top 10.Shenzhen ranked fourth in terms of financial industry development level, following New York, London and Singapore."Shenzhen moves up due to its comprehensive competitiveness and development," Yu Lingqu, vice director of the CDI Finance and Modern Industry Research Institute, said. He suggested Shenzhen should enhance its synergy of regional cooperation and utilize its advantages in finance and technology.Wang Shuxun, head of the Finance Department of the School of Business of Southern University of Science and Technology, thought financial innovation lies in aiding the development of the real economy. Shenzhen's global financial influence will be stronger if it utilizes the advantages of institutional innovation and steadily moves ahead step by step.

City releases regulation to boost foreign investment

03 16, 2021

Shenzhen is mulling to build a mechanism for urgently needed talent, according to a draft foreign investment regulation recently released by the Municipal Justice Bureau for public opinion.The regulation also said that Shenzhen will streamline procedures for foreign talents to live and work in Shenzhen and issue measures like faster entry in the country to support foreign-funded enterprises. These will make the city more attractive to these talents.To boost foreign investment, Shenzhen will update plans based on its own situations and let foreign companies enjoy the same support policies designed for local companies.At the same time, Shenzhen will promote the building of foreign-related public legal service system.The regulation includes a total of five chapters, with contents concerning investment promotion, protection and management.

Measures to promote science research

03 05, 2021

The Shenzhen Municipal Government recently announced measures to improve the whole chain of the application process of scientific and technological outcomes to production, Shenzhen Economic Daily reported.In the innovation aspect, no lower than 30 percent of the city-level R&D funds are expected to be allocated for basic research and applied basic research, particularly those that attempt to solve cutting-edge problems in science and long-term, high-risk original research. The core scientific fields include integrated circuits, 5G, intelligent connected vehicles, ultra-high-definition displays, biomedicine, industrial Internet, artificial intelligence, grapheme and so on. The measures also support enterprises to set up joint and offshore laboratories with domestic and foreign universities and research institutions.In the application aspect, the measures encourage universities and research institutions to explore a new operation mechanism in partnership with enterprises. This will help prove technical concepts and commercialize laboratory achievements. Shenzhen National High-tech Zone will practice this kind of mechanism.Technology transfer organizations (TTO) will be introduced and established in Shenzhen. The newly recognized country-, province- and city-level TTO will be subsidized according to regulations. A national trading platform for intellectual property (IP) and scientific and technological achievement is expected to be set up.Small- and medium-sized enterprises and maker teams can apply for science and technology innovation vouchers every year.In a bid to guarantee the industrialization of research outcomes, the measures say a mechanism will be established to exempt those who have diligently fulfilled their duties from liabilities. Researchers, who strictly implement management systems and receive no illegal interests, will be exempt from liabilities, such as errors in the pricing of scientific and technological achievements. Asset management companies under universities and research institutions, which have diligently fulfilled their duties but caused investment losses, will be exempt from completing the write-off procedures for loss-making assets with relevant departments' approval.