Editor's note: Low altitude refers to the height of 1,000 to 3,000 meters above the ground, and relevant research data predict that by the end of the "14th Five-Year Plan", the comprehensive contribution of the mainland's low-altitude economy to the national economy will reach 3 trillion to 5 trillion yuan. Among them, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is an important economic region, and its low-altitude economic scale is predicted to be about one trillion yuan.
On December 13, the communiqué of the Central Economic Conference was released, and the low-altitude economy has become a number of strategic emerging industries such as key development in 2024.
Southern Finance and Economics all-media reporter Li Jinping reported from Shenzhen
From calling for a "plane meal" when you are hungry to going to work when you are hungry, the future living space brought about by the development of the low-altitude economy is being realized.
As a combined economic form, the core of the low-altitude economy is the integration of aircraft and various industrial forms, such as "drone + distribution" and "helicopter + parachuting".
Since February 2021, the low-altitude economy has been written into the "National Comprehensive Three-dimensional Transportation Network Planning Outline" for the first time, and this year, it is ushering in an era of acceleration.
In June this year, the "Interim Regulations on the Management of Unmanned Aircraft Flight" was promulgated, which clarified the industrial development path from the national level. In October, the "Green Aviation Manufacturing Industry Development Outline (2023-2035)" clearly proposed to seize the opportunity of aviation power reform and accelerate the cultivation of new forms of aviation industry. In November, among the 22 innovative measures and typical experiences of Shenzhen's comprehensive reform pilot promoted by the National Development and Reform Commission and other departments, Shenzhen's innovative new mechanism for low-altitude economic development became an important experience and was promoted to the whole country.
In the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Guangzhou are competing for the low-altitude economy. In Shenzhen, drone delivery is becoming more and more mature, and by the end of August this year, the number of drone delivery orders has exceeded 210,000. In Guangzhou, low-altitude manned flights are also "not far away". On October 13, the Civil Aviation Administration of China issued the world's first type certificate for an unmanned manned electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, which is from Guangzhou. In Zhuhai, relying on the advantages of the Asian General Aviation Show and the China Airshow, Zhuhai High-tech Zone has gathered more than 30 upstream and downstream enterprises in the low-altitude economy, and in 2022, the economic scale of enterprises above designated size will reach more than 4 billion yuan, covering important fields such as UAV aircraft, flight control and navigation systems, and core components (chips and batteries).
Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and Zhuhai "Guangdong" are eager to try
In the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and Zhuhai are the three cities that have the fastest action in the low-altitude economic industry. Among them, Shenzhen is currently slightly ahead.
On November 16, in the National Development and Reform Commission and other departments to promote and learn from the 22 innovative measures and typical experiences of Shenzhen's comprehensive reform pilot, the "new mechanism of innovative low-altitude economic development" was widely recognized and promoted nationwide.
Immediately afterwards, on November 20, the Shenzhen Municipal Party Committee held a special meeting to make specific and clear arrangements for the next step of low-altitude economic development.
However, Guangzhou and Zhuhai, both of which belong to the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, are not far behind.
On November 16, Zhuhai established the city's first low-altitude economic industry alliance, and at the same time, in the just-concluded 2023 Asian General Aviation Exhibition, tens of thousands of enterprises in the field of flight were attracted to participate in the exhibition, exchange industry development, and add another fire to Zhuhai's competition for low-altitude economic industry.
Earlier, Guangzhou was also striding forward to promote the low-altitude economy, from both the policy and the industrial ends, to promote industrial development. On October 24, the "Notice on Several Measures to Promote the High-quality Development of Low-altitude Economy in Guangzhou Development Zone (Huangpu District)" was officially issued, which officially clarified the development of low-altitude economy at the policy level.
It is worth mentioning that on October 13 this year, EHang obtained the world's first unmanned electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft type qualification certification. Marking that the model has the ability to carry commercial operations, this company from Huangpu District, Guangzhou.
In fact, it can be seen that although the low-altitude economy is a "future industry", the cake of the low-altitude economy is very attractive.
Relevant studies show that by the end of the "14th Five-Year Plan", the comprehensive contribution value of the mainland's low-altitude economy to the national economy will reach 3~5 trillion yuan, and the market of the low-altitude economy in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area will be about one trillion yuan.
Behind the trillion market size, in fact, it shows that the low-altitude economic industry has a clear sentiment and strong demand drive, which not only contains huge commercial value and social value, but also has a direct effect on the development and competition of urban industries, thus attracting all over the country to enter the game.
Li Shipeng, academician of the International Eurasian Academy of Sciences and chair scientist of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Digital Economy Research Institute, said, "The low-altitude economy brings the possibility of scenario expansion. Drones are used for express delivery, emergency rescue, and virus detection, which can meet many of people's daily needs. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) extend to traditional agriculture, forestry, inspection and other fields, which can liberate humans from labor and participate in more creative work. For example, eVTOL and low-altitude flying cars can alleviate urban traffic congestion and improve travel efficiency and experience, and various low-altitude aircraft can also be applied in scenarios such as safety monitoring, environmental monitoring, and urban planning to help the management and governance of smart cities. ”
The development of a low-altitude economy is also conducive to the reshaping of the industry and the cultivation of innovative high-end manufacturing and emerging business formats. The low-altitude economy is an emerging industry that integrates aviation, communications, computers, materials science and other fields. At present, it has attracted traditional manufacturers such as Boeing, Airbus, Geely, Toyota, and innovative companies such as Lilium, and has become a hot investment area in the world in the past two years.
With the continuous and in-depth development of the Greater Bay Area, the population agglomeration effect is significant and the economic ties are increasingly strengthened, and the demand for low-altitude market is increasing day by day. The chief strategy officer of Shenzhen Eastern General Aviation has publicly stated that Huawei, Tencent, Foxconn, China General Nuclear Power and other leading enterprises in the Greater Bay Area have a large demand for low-altitude traffic. Taking Huawei as an example, Huawei has 70% of its multinational business, of which about 20%-25% are important customers, and hundreds of customers need to fly from Hong Kong Airport to Shenzhen headquarters every day to negotiate business.
It is worth noting that the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area has a solid industrial foundation, which has also added a fire to the low-altitude economy of the Bay Area cities, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is the highland of the global drone industry, Shenzhen occupies 70% of the market share of consumer-grade drones, and at the same time, the eVTOL industry chain involves batteries, power systems, flight control systems, communication systems, navigation and positioning systems and other major links, and enterprises in the Greater Bay Area have layouts. For example, in terms of batteries, there are BYD, EVE, Sunwoda, BAK batteries, Huawei and ZTE in communication systems, and eVTOL manufacturers such as EHang and Xiaopeng Huitian.
Each has its own "angle" to cut into the market
The low-altitude economic cake is attractive, but as a global budding and emerging industry, the development of low-altitude economy is not low.
From the realization of refined airspace management, the solution of huge public safety hazards, and the outrageous fixed investment before commercial operation, these development problems that low-altitude economic development still need to face, and are also testing every city that wants to dream of the sky.
The reporter of Southern Finance and Economics found that the three cities in the above-mentioned Bay Area are actively looking for their own city-solving ideas from multiple dimensions such as industrial base and regional endowment.
Among them, relying on the advantages of the drone industry, Shenzhen has come up with mechanism innovation, infrastructure paving and broadening scene applications.
Specifically, Shenzhen took the lead in promulgating the "Implementation Plan for the Innovation and Development of Shenzhen's Low-altitude Economic Industry (2022-2025)" in the country, setting comprehensive and clear development goals, promoting specific goals step by step on a year-by-year basis, and clarifying the implementation of key tasks to specific responsible departments.
At the same time, we will promote the construction of low-altitude intelligent infrastructure integration facilities, and promote the construction of "four networks" that support the low-altitude economy: facility network, air network, route network and service network. Gu Ming, a professor and doctoral supervisor of the School of Software of Tsinghua University, and a member of the Strategic Advisory Committee for the Construction of Smart City and Digital Government in Shenzhen, once told the 21st Century Business Herald reporter that "through the infrastructure construction of the digital base, the development difficulties that require road network coordination in the low-altitude economy can be solved." ”
In terms of scenario application, Shenzhen supports enterprises to carry out pilot projects such as intelligent distribution of UAV terminals, routes to tourist attractions, and transportation services for biological agents, and simultaneously build UAV air traffic control service systems. According to the data, by last year, Shenzhen had opened a total of 83 drone routes, realizing about 300,000 flights of drone cargo and comprehensive application.
Guangzhou, another city in the Greater Bay Area, has adopted a new infrastructure approach to lead and clarify the path of industrial ecological construction. Guangzhou's low-altitude economy is mainly in Huangpu District, of which Guangzhou Economic Development Zone is a key area.
As early as September 2022, Huangpu District introduced the Fifth Research Institute of Electronics of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, which has the only national UAV system quality supervision and inspection center in the country and a number of domestic and foreign recognized qualifications, and established Guangdong Saibao Xintiandi Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Saibao Xintiandi") to coordinate and improve the infrastructure and flight service support system, focusing on building "N supporting facilities + 1 platform", that is, to coordinate the construction of several low-altitude aircraft take-off and landing points, low-altitude monitoring facilities, UAV automatic duty hangar and other low-altitude flight ground infrastructure facilities.
In terms of low-altitude economic and industrial ecological construction, the Guangzhou Development Zone gives full play to the advantages of the "three cities and one island" strategic platform, and carries out industrial ecological layout from north to south. In the Sino-Singapore Guangzhou Knowledge City, we will accelerate the construction of a low-altitude aircraft manufacturing and delivery center and a low-altitude aircraft application verification base, in the Guangzhou Science City, we will focus on parts manufacturing, basic software, low-altitude services and other fields, in Guangzhou Maritime Silk City, relying on the construction of the Guangzhou Artificial Intelligence and Digital Economy Pilot Zone (Yuzhu Area), we will focus on breakthroughs in key technologies such as basic software and computing power algorithms, and in Guangzhou International Biological Island, we will explore and implement more smart city applications.
On October 13 this year, Guangzhou Huangpu District issued the "Notice of Several Measures to Promote the High-quality Development of Low-altitude Economy in Guangzhou Development District (Huangpu District)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Notice"), the "Notice" proposes that Huangpu District will support the gathering of real money and silver enterprises, and the task is clear to accelerate the development of low-altitude economic and industrial development.
Zhuhai, a fortress city that connects with Guangzhou and Shenzhen and connects the air traffic in the Bay Area, relies on the air show platform and location advantages to enter the manufacturing industry to form a complete industrial chain and accelerate the formation of industrial ecology.
Zhuhai is the permanent venue of the China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition and a pilot city for the reform of low-altitude airspace management in the mainland. In recent years, Zhuhai has attracted a number of high-quality general aviation enterprises to settle down, forming a complete industrial chain running through the production, sales and operation of aircraft.
As of now, the region has gathered more than 30 upstream and downstream enterprises of the low-altitude economy, and the economic scale of enterprises above the scale will reach more than 4 billion yuan in 2022, covering important fields such as unmanned aerial vehicles, flight control and navigation systems, core components (chips and batteries), etc., and has a concentrated industrial trend.
Global competition Comprehensive capability is the key
Although the low-altitude economy is the industry of the future, there are still lessons to be learned from on a global scale.
It is understood that the two bay areas are actively exploring low-altitude economy, among them, the San Francisco Bay Area is accelerating to become the "innovation capital" of the global eVTOL industry, and the Tokyo Bay Area is developing advanced air mobility with comprehensive planning as the traction, which has certain reference significance for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area to accelerate the low-altitude economy.
In the construction method of the two bay areas, the main form is "national top-level design + local government leading guidance + market entities carrying out actual construction", but the details are slightly different.
Among them, the San Francisco Bay Area, relying on the national top-level planning, construction standards and norms first, and in-depth industrial cooperation to drive multi-party actions.
National institutions, represented by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the National Space Administration (NASA), play an important role in the development of the low-altitude economy. On the one hand, the Federal Aviation Administration of the United States has unified and clarified the construction standards and specifications for UAM hardware infrastructure, which provides direction and guidance for the infrastructure construction of low-altitude economy. On the other hand, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and NASA have cooperated with the industry to develop and iterate a number of subsystems (LANNC system, international airspace system, etc.) to provide intelligent, efficient and integrated support for low-altitude management services. At the same time, relying on the requirements of infrastructure standards and specifications, local governments cooperate with the implementation of pilot applications, and market entities begin to actually build.
On the R&D side, the Supernal R&D Center in Washington, D.C., the Plana Aero headquarters in South Korea, the Aviation Futures Lab at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Intelligent Systems Laboratory at Stanford University. On the manufacturing side, it has a number of the strongest eVTOL manufacturers in the United States, such as Joby, Archer, Wisk, Elroy, Kitty Hawk, and Alef Aeronautics. On the app side, Uber was the first ride-sharing company to propose an air taxi plan, and this vision is gradually becoming a reality - United Airlines plans to offer electric plane rentals to and from San Francisco International Airport starting in 2026.
It is worth mentioning that Musk's rocket launch company SpaceX has also paid attention to this industry and invested in the flying car company Alef Automotive, whose flying car Model A has obtained a special airworthiness certificate issued by the FAA for limited purposes such as exhibition, research and development.
Japan's Tokyo Bay Area, on the other hand, focuses on the three dimensions of infrastructure, application and regulation, and relies on the country's top-level design to accelerate the low-altitude economy.
Among them, in terms of infrastructure, led by national institutions and cooperated with market players, a relatively complete low-altitude airspace management system has been jointly developed, which is applied to the field of low-altitude flight. In the field of supervision, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism has unified the convergence management system, optimized the UAV approval and supervision process, and improved the efficiency of supervision and management.
In addition to the increasing improvement of the industrial system from R&D to production, including SkyDrive, the strongest eVTOL company in Japan, it is particularly worth mentioning that Tokyo, Japan only took 5 years to build a general aviation rescue and rescue system, and this process has gone through 20 years in Europe and the United States.
Not only in the way of reference, but also in terms of benchmarking the existing urban actions in the mainland, the Southern Finance and Economics all-media reporter combed and found that system optimization, ecological richness, and infrastructure improvement will become the future low-altitude economic development trend, and in these aspects, there are a number of key issues related to industrial development that are worth further solving.
For example, at the institutional level, how to ensure the coordination of the road network under the operation of the main body and not cause traffic and air congestion, because it involves many regulatory units such as the military, civil aviation, and local governments, as well as various market entities, how to coordinate multiple issues. In terms of infrastructure, "for example, how to go upstairs, because the aircraft uses battery swap mode to endurance, timely battery replenishment is the key to low-altitude flight, but due to the limited land area in the city, the battery replacement site is mainly concentrated on the top floor of the construction area, and how to formulate battery standards that meet the upstairs needs to be further solved." The staff of Fengyi Technology told the reporter of Southern Finance and Economics.
According to the reporter's understanding, the Shenzhen Municipal Transportation Bureau is speeding up the introduction of "Several Measures to Support the High-quality Development of the Low-altitude Economy", cooperating with the Shenzhen Municipal People's Congress to compile the country's first local regulations on the development of low-altitude economic industry "Shenzhen Special Economic Zone Low-altitude Economic Industry Promotion Regulations", and making a number of institutional innovations in improving the low-altitude integration management mechanism, coordinating infrastructure construction, and expanding industrial application fields, so as to legislate to help Shenzhen's low-altitude economy "fly high".
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