Research and Markets, which claims to be the world’s largest market research resource with 382,776 reports, has published The Survey of China’s Innovative Hi-tech Development Zones.

With the establishment of the Zhongguancun Science and Technology Park (seen in our illustration), in 1988 , China’s Hi-Tech Development Zones (HTDZs), after 20 years’ development, have gradually entered a mature development period.With the unprecedented economical prosperity and the significant impact of information technology, HTDZs faces both new opportunities and new challenges.In China, the traditional Science and Technology Park programming method can not satisfy the demand of the new economical situation, therefore it is necessary to introduce new thoughts and new methods to deal with the challenges, while at the same time seizing the development opportunities.Faced with the increasingly fierce competition in the economic globalization era, independent innovations now have been elevated to national strategy, for the biggest developing country, China.In 2007, China’s Hi-Tech Development Zones eleventh five-year plan outline was formulated and promulgated, marking the coming of a new development stage of HTDZs, with clearer targets.According to the outline, the development of HTDZ should follow ‘Six Principles’, realize ‘Five Changes’, achieve ‘Four Promotions’ and build up ‘Three Types of Zones’ within the Eleventh Five-Year period. 

The report The Survey of China’s Hi-tech Development Zone covers most of the information that exists on technological parks. It costs $3,687, which, while expensive, is not out of line with the price of similar reports.
Source: Research and Markets

Weihai is one of the industrial zones mentioned in the story below, Peninsula focus for growth. In itself it has various zones in which more than RMB4 million has already been invested in infrastructure.

It also has other attractions that bring businesses to the area. It is on the sea and has a pleasant climate and a clean environment. There are plenty of recreational facilities with four golf courses. Weihai has protected its green belt of pine trees along the beach as well as building many parks along the beaches and throughout the city.

The Qingwei and Yanwei Expressways have been constructed, as well as the Taowei Railway line.
Regular commercial and cargo flights are scheduled from across China, including Beijing, and in the region, including Japan and Korea.
Weihai’s port has the capability to accept 10,000 ton and 50,000 ton traffic.
The Weihai power plant has a total generating capacity of over 2 gigawatts, with 850 megawatts already in use.
Weihai’s telecommunications have been enhanced from 19,000 telephone lines to 60,000 lines, with a satellite communications system to Korea.
The administrative area is 72KM2, including a programmed area of 36 square kilometers and an initial area of 11.88 square kilometers.
Source: Business in Asia

Acting Shandong governor Jiang Daming has said the eight-city cluster on the Shandong peninsula should position itself as a regional advanced manufacturing base and take advantage of its close proximity to Japan and South Korea.

The cluster comprises Jinan, Qingdao, Yantai, Zibo, Weihai, Weifang, Dongying, and Rizhao.

As a whole, they generate two-thirds of the province’s gross domestic product: RMB2.6 trillion($359 billion) last year.

The province plans to grow its GDP from the cluster by 15% and foreign direct investment by 40% annually until 2010.

A blueprint for the cluster for 2006-20, calls for six industrial zones to be developed on the Shandong peninsula.

These will cover the petrochemical and medicine industries in Dongying-Zibo, the electronic and IT industries in Jinan, home appliances in Qingdao-Rizhao, the automotive industry in Yantai-Weihai, textiles in Weifang and the marine industry in Rizhao-Qingdao-Weihai-Yantai.

Jiang Daming said, ‘About 70% of listed companies, 70% of foreign-funded firms and 80% of exported products in Shandong are from the city group.’

Shandong will speed up building a base for Japanese and South Korean manufacturing companies on the peninsula centered on Qingdao, Yantai and Weihai.

There are more than 6,000 South Korean and 1,500 Japanese companies on the Shandong peninsula. About 70% of all South Korean firms in China have a presence in Shandong.

Xia Geng, mayor of Qingdao, said there are 5,000 South Korean companies in the city and the number is expected to double in five years.

The coastal city is promoting the establishment of a bonded zone to attract more foreign and domestic investors to set up manufacturing bases.

Qingdao will try to facilitate the construction of a railway ferry project between China and South Korea, so goods can be moved cheaply.
Source: People’s Daily Online

Zhongguancun is an early industrial zone which is in the northwest part of Beijing and could be thought of, in a sense, as China’s ‘Silicon Valley.’

This is not a zone that has been designed from scratch. It has evolved rather than followed a strict plan.

Since the mid-1980’s it has been transformed from a quiet suburb designated for scientific research and higher education a major hub of high-tech business and research and development (R & D) labs. The following snapshots show the region’s startling transformation in a matter of years.

If you look at early pictures of the place in, say, the early 1980 you see it is a peaceful backwater with

each institute having a residential compound.

By 2005, the area hosted over 17,000 certified new technology enterprises; nearly 60% were in information communication technology or related sectors which is why you can think of it as China’s Silicon Valley. Most of the companies were spin-offs from universities and the nearby Academy of Sciences.

Compared to regions in other developing countries it has unique features. All Chinese technological commercial firms had to be created — from scratch — in the post-reform era that began in the 1980’s.

Further, ZGC does not feature multinational corporations (MNCs) as dominant players though MNCs have been welcomed as an integral part of the mix.

Technological progress in ZGC has been driven primarily by domestic demand rather than export needs.

Over 85% of ZGC’s revenue has come from domestic sales of products and services.

Many of China’s well-known ICT companies are found in ZGC: Lenovo, the world third largest personal computer manufacturer; Baidu, China’s leading Internet search engine company; UFIDA, China’s largest privately owned software company; Founder, China’s largest digital media company; Datang, one of China’s largest telecommunication solution companies; Aigo, China’s leading portable storage and digital entertainment product maker, and Sina.com and Sohu.com, two of China’s most popular Internet portals.

The advance of firms in ZGC is driven by the ability to create and implementadvanced technologies for the Chinese market.

This article is a very condensed part of a a chapter in The Inside Story of China’s High-Tech Industry: Making Silicon Valley in Beijing by Yu Zhou who is associate professor of Earth Science and Geography, Vassar College. Click on Source to read the rest of the chapter.
Source: Japan Focus

Danube Building Materials, a leader in the construction, building materials, and shop fitting industry, has announced that it has invested $15 million towards the formation of the Lianyungang Donghai Danube Wood Products in China, as a part of the company’s international expansion plans.

The move involved the construction of three new manufacturing facilities in the Punan Industrial Economic Development Zone in Lianyungang Port, which the company expects to generate $50 million in additional revenues. The first batch of China-made products are expected to arrive to the Middle East by early 2008.

Danube established an office in Shanghai in 2002, which was shortly followed by the launch of a liaison office in Guangzhou.

The rapid growth of Danube’s operations has earned the Dubai-based manufacturer an export license from the customs department of China, which has paved the way for the formation of the Lianyungang Donghai Danube Wood Products company.

Spanning 50,000 square feet, the industrial unit comprises three facilities including a Melamine MDF pressing plant, a Melamine impregnation line, and a backing panel pressing plant and the decor ply production line, all of which have been constructed within a six month period.
Source: Ali Bawa

IBM will establish the first Cloud Computing Center for software companies in China in an industrial zone, offering emerging Chinese software companies in that zone the ability to tap into a virtual computing environment to support their development activities. It will be established with IBM and Wuxi Tai Lake Industry Investment and Development

The Cloud Computing Center will be in Wuxi Tai Hu New Town Science and Education Industrial Park which is home to dozens of new software companies and represents a multimillion dollar investment.

iSoftStone, one of the new software companies in the park, plans to develop account settlement software for the financial services industry.

Wuxi is classified as an investment zone by the Chinese government and has been named a ‘National Model City of Science and Technology Advancement’ for five consecutive years.

Companies in the park will be able to access these common services provided by the center at any time — just as they use utilities and other shared services.

The technologies being offered include IBM Rational software development tools, WebSphere Application Server software and DB2 database software running on IBM System x, System p and BladeCenter servers. IBM Tivoli systems management software will manage the cloud computing environment.
Source: Virtualization

Having started a section high-tech industrial zones it is as if you have wandered into a large parallel universe.

Take for example Dalian Hi-Tech Industrial Zone which was one of the first state-level hi-tech zones approved by the state council in March 1991.

The figures boggle the mind. It covers an area of 24.6 square kilometers, comprising Qixianlin Industrial Base, No.5 Highway Industrial Area, Youjiacun Industrial Base, Huanghelu Science plaza plus some other sections.

During its development,the Zone always focused on the goal of developing and industrializing high technology.

There are about 1,700 enterprises, 380 of which involving foreign elements, and 360 are recognized as hi-tech inside the Zone.

The Zone has established close relations with more than 20 countries and regions in world.

And it is expanding. No.5 Highway Industrial Area is 5 km to Dayaowan Container Port, 28 Km to Dalian International Airportand 28 km to the downtown center. A light tram has been planned to run between the downtown center and No.5 Highway Industrial Area.

Then on South Lushun Road in the southwestern part of Dalian, Qixianling Industrial Base is a key area for the development of hi-tech industries. This base covers an area of 5.68 square kilometers of which nearly three have already been developed.

And on it goes.

For example Dalian Overseas Students Park is for overseas students to set up hi-tech enterprises by themselves or with others. At present there are already 22 enterprises which have been set up by people from the higher levels of university life.

Amazing stuff.
Source: China-Dalian