The high-speed rail took 2 hours to narrow the distance between Shanghai and the reporter's hometown of Quzhou, and also made the number of returns to the hometown in the past two years much more frequent. Even if we see each other often, the changes in our hometown are still so significant that they are visible to the naked eye.
In the last two months of 2021, Quzhou People's Hospital moved into a new campus with a total investment of about 3 billion yuan and a construction area of more than 360,000 square meters, and upgraded it to a marginal central hospital with 2,000 beds and equipped with a digital surgical system in four provinces. The most intuitive feeling is that this modern and intelligent hospital, with its garden-like design, spacious and transparent space and natural landscapes everywhere, makes it easier to seek medical treatment.
Not far away, the Quzhou Sports Center, with a total investment of about 3.54 billion yuan, has also been unveiled. The 30,000-seat stadium became the venue for the opening ceremony of the 4th Zhejiang Provincial Sports Conference on October 22, 2021. There is also a grand theater with about 1500 seats, which can meet the performances of large operas, dramas, stage plays, symphonies and other performances, and has entered the final commissioning stage before the Spring Festival.
On September 30, 2021, the first cross-river tunnel in Quzhou City was opened for trial operation, opening an important passage for the connection between the old city and the smart new city.
These intuitive changes have occurred in the past six months. The new city planning originally painted on the drawings is landing step by step, injecting modern elements into this historic city with beautiful mountains and rivers, and also bringing convenience and happiness to the lives of locals.
With long-term planning, a good ecological environment and predictable infrastructure, more and more Quzhou people choose to settle in the new city, which has also made it a highland for local housing prices. But that's not enough. The new city from scratch is inseparable from the real economy as a strong backing and the driving force for continuously attracting talents.
It is gratifying that in the interview of returning to his hometown during the Spring Festival, the reporter saw that the slogan of "industry is king, industry is strong" has fallen into the daily work of local investment promotion, and also let the "latecomers" of Zhejiang's economic development have staying power.
Led by the digital economy
In October 2021, Quzhou City reorganized the investment promotion work system, and after repeated competitions at the city and county levels, a total of 200 cadres and soldiers were selected and sent to Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Shenzhen and other places to attract investment. Xu Wang, from the Quzhou Smart New City Management Committee Office, is one of them.
A few days before the Spring Festival approached, Xu Wang, who had been in Shanghai for a month, returned home in Quzhou. He told First Finance and Economics that although it is not easy to attract investment, they now have a stronger target and goal for foreign investment promotion. For the smart new city, positioning is the main front of digital industrialization, so the focus of development is the digital economy and smart industry, which is also the focus of their investment promotion.
"In Shanghai, we will understand the professional situation of the industry according to the upstream and downstream of the existing enterprises in Quzhou, and visit the relevant enterprises in a planned manner." Xu Wang said that after the docking is mature, they will also bring merchants back to Quzhou for on-site inspection, or conduct detailed negotiations with the platform where the project lands.
Mao Tongtong, Intelligent Manufacturing Department of Quzhou Economic and Information Bureau, previously told First Finance and Economics that from April 2020, some major local economic indicators have maintained the first growth level in Zhejiang Province, and the main growth point is the core manufacturing industry of the digital economy. The smart new city that focuses on the digital economy is indispensable.
Official data show that in the whole year of 2021, the smart new city completed fixed asset investment of 12.73 billion yuan, an increase of 37.6%; achieved tax revenue of 1.928 billion yuan (of which corporate income tax accounted for 31.7%, an increase of 86.64%), an increase of 101.36% year-on-year; general public budget revenue of 1.035 billion yuan, an increase of 97.7%. The Innovation Building and the Garden 258 Innovation and Entrepreneurship Park achieved tax revenue of 168 million yuan and 281 million yuan respectively.
At the same time, the annual investment promotion funds in place were 1.232 billion yuan, completing 112% of the annual target task. 7 projects of more than 1 billion yuan were landed; 60 digital economy enterprises were introduced, and 157.84% of the annual target tasks were completed; 47 tax-source enterprises were introduced. Huaxia Aviation School, Sunshine City, Feilai Hotel, Outlets and other major investment projects have started construction.
As far as the industrial base of the digital economy is concerned, Quzhou actually has no inherent advantages. But Quzhou used ingenuity, that is, to persuade the Yangtze River Delta Research Institute of the University of Electronic Science and Technology to settle here, and to bring talents and projects in the digital economy here. At the same time, the Quzhou Smart New City Management Committee issued the "Implementation Opinions on Accelerating the Development of the Digital Economy of Quzhou Smart New City", which involves twelve hard-core support policies such as incubation support, research and development subsidies, and innovation support, in an attempt to create an optimal environment for the development of the digital economy.
At the same time as choosing Quzhou, the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China also laid out the Pearl River Delta and chose Shenzhen. Choosing a high-tech development highland and taking the electronic information industry as the pillar of Shenzhen is natural, and in the Yangtze River Delta to choose Quzhou, a fourth-tier city, Wang Yafei, secretary of the party committee of the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, gave the reason that "choosing Shenzhen is to choose the present, and choosing Quzhou is to choose the future."
Judging from quzhou's current economic volume and the current situation of the electronic information industry, this is a rather encouraging sentence, but in the context of the integration of the Yangtze River Delta and Zhejiang Province's digital economy as the "No. 1 project", Quzhou's positioning is not low - to build "the first sub-central city of the national digital economy" and "the highland of marginal digital economy development in four provinces", which is the goal set by Quzhou for itself in the past two years.
Under such a goal, a new generation of information technology enterprises represented by the Ali system have settled in Quzhou, and a number of digital economy projects such as NetEase Yanxuan, Beixinyuan, Yunxiang Intelligent Technology, and Liju Information have also landed.
In the fall of 2021, the Yangtze River Delta Research Institute of the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, which the reporter visited a year ago, has successfully moved into the new science and technology building, welcoming more teachers and students.
Today, the Qu Times Innovation Building, the transitional place of the Yangtze River Delta Research Institute of the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, has more than 75% of the occupancy rate, attracting more than 70 technology companies including Alibaba, Huawei, ZTE, etc., accommodating more than 3,000 employees, and becoming a tax "100 million yuan building" in 2020.
The office of Zhejiang Dianke Zhisheng Technology Co., Ltd. is opposite the original University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, on the 18th floor of Qu Times Innovation Building. The science and technology information company dedicated to cryptography research and data information security is an alumni enterprise of the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, and its core technology products come from the transformation of scientific research achievements of teachers and students of this "double first-class" university.
"Some graduates of the University of Electronic Science and Technology will join us, and we can also share the resources of the University of Electronic Science and Technology." Wu Junqiao, deputy general manager of Zhejiang Electric Technology Co., Ltd., told First Finance that the company's software research and development headquarters is located in Quzhou, and nearly 40 software copyright patents have been won in 2021 alone, and about 70% of the company's business is also in Quzhou. Less than a year and a half after its establishment, the company has achieved the scale of the regulated enterprise, and the goal is to impact the listing in 3 to 5 years.
In order to attract high-end talents, they set up a subsidiary in Hangzhou. Wu Junqiao said that the next software research and development and production line will remain in Quzhou, but will use the enclave in Hangzhou to attract more high-end software talents.
Zhejiang Anyan Technology, established in October 2020, is also one of the technology enterprises in Innovation Building. In just one year, the company, which has only 15 people, has achieved a performance of nearly 15 million yuan in annual contract amounts, and generated about 1 million yuan in per capita income.
As a high-tech enterprise with completely independent intellectual property rights, Anyan Technology is committed to the research and development and manufacturing of civil radar systems, the main business covers intelligent transportation, intelligent security, automotive active safety and other fields, and its founding team comes from Xidian University.
Lv Sheng, general manager of Anyan Technology, told First Finance that they are expected to become regulated enterprises in 2022, and the annual contract amount will exceed 20 million. Based on the projects that have been landed in Quzhou Smart New City, they are expanding to more cities. Currently, about half of the projects come from the local area.
"According to the existing regulations, we cannot apply for the business scope of the manufacturing category on the business license, but in order to support the development of small and micro technology enterprises such as ours, the local government is always trying to find ways to facilitate new digital manufacturing enterprises." Lu Sheng said that Quzhou has a first-class business environment and a foundation for the concentration of the radio industry, giving them the soil for the rapid growth of enterprises like them.
Wu Liyan, deputy director of the Investment Service Department of the Quzhou Wisdom New City Management Committee, told First Finance and Economics that in 2021, the new city introduced CLP Hikvision, an industry leader, and there are still 13 radio projects currently under discussion, and there are 4 to 5 radio projects of more than 100 million yuan. In 2022, the new city plans to attract 2 radio "chain main" enterprises, 10 production enterprises, cultivate 3 enterprises of more than 100 million yuan, and increase the scale of radio industry operating income by 30% to 8.5 billion yuan.
The industry is constantly gathering, but Lu Sheng also admitted that there is still a gap between Quzhou and first- and second-tier cities in attracting high-end talents. Their solution is to put the headquarters and part of the R&D and product assembly testing in Quzhou, and apply for an enclave in Hangzhou to introduce more high-end R&D talent. At present, this plan has received the support of the local government and is expected to land soon.
As an important engine for the development of smart new cities, the Quzhou West Railway Station of hangzhou-Quzhou Railway, the second high-speed rail station in Quzhou, is under construction. After the completion and opening of traffic, the distance between Quzhou and Hangzhou will be shortened to about 40 minutes, which will promote the full integration of the local area into the Hangzhou metropolitan area and the innovation ecosystem.
Traditional manufacturing upgrades
For Quzhou, there is more than one new city in the blueprint.
In addition to the above-mentioned smart new city located in the west of the central urban area, there is also a smart new city located in the southeast of the central urban area, focusing on promoting the transformation of traditional manufacturing to high-end intelligent manufacturing, which is regarded as the main battlefield, main engine and main force of "industry is king, industrial strong city".
The investment personnel of Quzhou Intelligent Manufacturing New City, which is also stationed in Shanghai, told First Finance and Economics that the two elements that enterprises are most concerned about in site selection are the degree of perfection of the industrial chain and the other is talent. On the basis of the current platform of green industrial agglomeration areas (Quzhou Economic and Technological Development Zone, Quzhou High-tech Industrial Development Zone), the intelligent new city integrating Quhua Area, Kecheng Donggang Industrial Park, Qujiang Economic Development Zone and other areas has an industrial agglomeration foundation.
The local area gathers six landmark industrial chains such as new materials, new energy, integrated circuits, intelligent equipment, life and health, and special paper. From January to November 2021, the total industrial output value of the six major industrial chains will be 79.3 billion yuan, accounting for 65.4% of the intelligent new city, and leading enterprises such as Yuanli, Juhua Group, Huayou Department, and Xianhe Department will complete the output value target ahead of schedule.
From January to December 2021, the total industrial output value of the intelligent new city was 134.06 billion yuan, accounting for half of the city(53%), an increase of 33.6% year-on-year. At the same time, the investment in fixed assets was 10.79 billion yuan, an increase of 20.7% year-on-year, of which the manufacturing investment was 7.96 billion yuan, an increase of 32.1% year-on-year.
In the past year, there have been 6 new enterprises of more than 1 billion yuan in the intelligent manufacturing new city with 6 main board listed companies, 1 main board listed enterprise - Yonghe shares, 6 enterprises have entered the listing counseling, 2 new national specialized special new "little giants", and 25 new "new upgrading regulation" and "small upgrading" enterprises.
"With the improvement of the industrial chain, we are now all projects in the queue and other places." The above-mentioned investment personnel said that under the goal of "double carbon", the previous intelligent new city was compared with one or two projects, and now several projects are compared together to see which project can bring higher output value and then choose to introduce.
Regarding the problem of high-end talents, their solution is to set up enclaves in places like Zhangjiang in Shanghai, forming a pattern of "research and development in Zhangjiang, industry in Quzhou".
In their contacts with enterprises, the motivation for enterprises to choose Quzhou is not only the practical considerations such as industrial agglomeration and logistics costs, but also the local business environment, superior natural resources, and location advantages located in the marginal centers of the four provinces.
Although it is not easy to attract investment, and the competition in various places is quite fierce, these young overseas investment personnel feel that with the efforts of Quzhou in the past two years in the city brand and industrial agglomeration, more and more people know Quzhou, which also gives them greater confidence.
Quzhou, known as the "four provinces through the Qu, the general head of the five roads", is also attracting more people to pay attention to the present and future here on the road of building a demonstration area for the marginal common prosperity of the four provinces and a marginal central city in the four provinces.
(The pictures in the article are from the Quzhou Smart New City Management Committee)