Author: Yu Fei
01 | Qingdao is competing for talents
Qingdao, which has fallen behind, is particularly eager to catch up this year.
Since May, Qingdao has issued several blockbuster documents to seek breakthroughs in the industry.
For example, on May 23, the "Notice on Printing and Distributing the Action Plan for the High-quality Development of Qingdao's New Energy Vehicle Industry (2024-2025)" was issued, and on May 31, the "Notice on Printing and Distributing the Action Plan for the Innovation and Development of Qingdao's Artificial Intelligence Industry (2024-2026)" was issued.
Industry is the soul of a city.
There is a view that a "city" comes first with a "city" and then a "city", and the "city" can survive because of the "city". And the city here refers to trade, and the root of trade is industry. Without industry, there is nothing to rely on to buy and sell.
Therefore, the importance of industry to cities cannot be overstated. The prosperity of a city must be the prosperity of industry. The weakening of cities is inevitably caused by the weakening of industries.
To develop the industry, talents are indispensable. Therefore, on July 1, Qingdao issued the "Qingdao Three-Year Action Plan for Youth Talent Gathering (2024-2026)", which clearly proposed:
By 2026, more than 450,000 new young talents will be introduced, and the proportion of young people in the city's employment will remain at about 70%.
Source: Qingdao release
Such a document has also been issued in Chongqing and Xiamen this year on the road of chasing industrial upgrading.
In April, in the face of the population plunge, Chongqing issued the "Action Plan for Millions of College Graduates and Other Young People to Stay in Chongqing for Employment and Entrepreneurship (2024-2027)", officially starting its operation of grabbing people.
Chongqing's objectives are:
In 2024, more than 300,000 young people such as college graduates will stay in Chongqing for employment and entrepreneurship (including more than 50,000 people from outside Chongqing). From 2025 to 2027, more than 400,000 young people such as college graduates will stay in Chongqing for employment and entrepreneurship every year (of which more than 60,000 people will come to Chongqing every year). In the past four years, a total of 1.5 million college graduates and other young people have been promoted to stay in Chongqing for employment and entrepreneurship, and efforts have been made to make Chongqing the first choice for college graduates and other young people to work and start businesses in the western region.
In April, Xiamen also issued the "Implementation Plan on Providing Free Accommodation Guarantee for College Students Seeking Jobs and Internship in Xiamen", proposing:
Eligible college students can enjoy up to 12 months of free accommodation.
According to the plan, full-time college graduates (inclusive) or above who come to Xiamen for job hunting and internship within 3 years of graduation and have no housing in Xiamen (local college students' collective households are regarded as non-municipal household registration); Non-full-time college students (inclusive) or above who come to Xiamen for internship can apply online to enjoy the policy if they meet the conditions. According to the accommodation standard of "one bed" per person, in principle, two people in one room, each room does not exceed 3 people.
02 | Grab people behind the scenes
Like Chongqing and Xiamen, there are two main factors behind Qingdao's talent grabbing: one is the pressure of population increment, and the other is the demand for industrial upgrading.
First, the pressure of population increase.
The reason why Chongqing has set the "Action Plan for Millions of College Graduates and Other Young People to Stay in Chongqing for Employment and Entrepreneurship" is because the city's population increase in 2023 has hit a number of uniques and firsts.
It is the largest city in terms of population decline among major cities. It is the only city with negative growth among the four municipalities directly under the central government. It is the only city with negative growth among the nine national central cities. It is the city with the largest population decline among the more than 200 cities that have released population data so far.
Cartography: City Finance; Data: Municipal statistical bureaus
Behind Xiamen's rush for people, there is also pressure on population increase.
In three of the last four years, Xiamen's permanent population has increased by only a few tens of thousands. Last year, the increase fell to 19,000.
Cartography: City Finance; Data: Xiamen Municipal Bureau of Statistics
Qingdao, the pressure is even greater. Because of the whole of Shandong, the permanent population has decreased very rapidly in the past two years.
In 2023, the permanent population of Shandong Province will decrease by 398,200, ranking second in the country in terms of reduction, second only to Henan.
Cartography: City Finance; Data: Statistical Bureaus of Provinces, Municipalities and Autonomous Regions
The most critical thing is that of the 16 cities under the jurisdiction of Shandong last year, only Jinan and Qingdao still had population increases, and the rest are decreasing. The population increase in Jinan and Qingdao is also negligible.
Qingdao added 29,400 last year, and Jinan added 22,000.
Cartography: City Finance; Data: Qingdao Municipal Bureau of Statistics
Throughout the past 20 years, the highest increase in Qingdao's permanent population was just over 210,000. Among the central cities, Qingdao's population competitiveness is not strong.
In the era of crazy growth of central cities, Shenzhen and Guangzhou both had an annual population increase of 500,000 or 600,000, and Chengdu, Hangzhou, Xi'an, Wuhan and other cities had a population increase of 300,000 or 400,000.
With the complete transformation of the country's population, Qingdao's demographic competitiveness is becoming weaker and weaker, and it is likely to fall into negative growth next year.
So, the robbery must be carried out.
Second, industrial upgrading is needed.
In recent years, the development speed of Qingdao and most of the central cities in the entire north has slowed down. Taiyuan's GDP growth in the first quarter was even negative.
Ren Zeping said: The core logic of the difference in the speed of development between the north and the south lies in the difference in the degree of marketization. That's right.
It is precisely the difference in the degree of market openness that leads to the difference in industrial structure, which ultimately increases the difference in economy and employment, and triggers the movement of various factors of production such as population, economy, industry, and wealth from north to south.
If the northern cities want to chase after it, in addition to increasing the opening of the market and emancipating the mind, they should also follow the example of the strong cities in the south and grasp the attraction of investment and industry.
Qingdao has also had infinite scenery.
In the early days of the Republic of China, it was called "Shangqingtian" together with Shanghai and Tianjin, and its status was comparable to today's "Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen".
In 1949, Qingdao's GDP ranked fifth in the country, stronger than Wuhan, Guangzhou, and Beijing. However, after 2010, Qingdao completely fell out of the top ten and was surpassed by Ningbo.
Today, Qingdao's total industrial output value is only more than 1 trillion yuan, while Shenzhen's annual output value of electronic equipment manufacturing alone is 2.5 trillion yuan, and Beijing's software industry has an annual output value of 2.4 trillion yuan. The industry, which used to be the background color of Qingdao, is getting wider and wider with other cities.
Regarding the core reason for Qingdao's economic slowdown, this number has emphasized in many articles written about Qingdao before that the speed of moving from real to virtual is too fast.
In 2022, Qingdao's secondary industry accounted for 34.8%, and in 2015, Qingdao's secondary industry accounted for 43.3%, and in 2010, it was as high as 48.7%.
Source: Qingdao Bureau of Statistics
In Ningbo in the same period, the secondary industry accounted for 55.4% in 2010 and 47.2% in 2022, accounting for a reasonable decline, and the generalized manufacturing industry still accounts for nearly half of the economy.
Cartography: City Finance; Data: Ningbo, Qingdao, Tianjin Bureau of Statistics
In this context:
1. The pattern between Qingdao and Ningbo has been broken. In 2017, Ningbo successfully overtook Qingdao, replacing Qingdao in the second city of the five cities with separate plans.
2. Qingdao has not given birth to a new phenomenon-level enterprise.
The official account "Qin Shuo Circle of Friends" summarizes, look at today's list of the top 500 Chinese enterprises, many of the top ones are "new species" that represent the trend of the industrial era - Jingdong, Alibaba, Tencent, Suning, Xiaomi, BOE, SF, Baidu, Pinduoduo, etc., but Qingdao is still shortlisted for some old faces - Haier, Hisense, are all "old golden flowers" cultivated in the 90s of the last century.
Therefore, this year, we are very concerned about the upgrading and layout of the industry.
In order to complete the return of industrial added value, the proportion of manufacturing industry, and the increase of the proportion of added value of high-tech industries, it is necessary to continuously upgrade backward industries and lay out emerging industries.
To do this, we need capital, technology, and talent.
This is the core purpose of Qingdao to rush for talents.
03 | Qingdao, there is no way back
Judging from a series of actions in Qingdao this year, they are mainly focused on three things:
First, chase the pigs on the tuyere and lay out the new energy vehicle industry.
In May, Qingdao issued the "Action Plan for the High-Quality Development of Qingdao's New Energy Vehicle Industry (2024-2025)", proposing to strive for 400,000 vehicles by 2025.
In 2023, the output of new energy vehicles in Shenzhen and Shanghai will exceed one million.
Cartography: City Finance; Data: Municipal statistical bureaus
In the new energy vehicle industry, Qingdao's layout is not too late, but when Nai is unlucky, the sky will not help Qingdao.
According to the data of urban evolutionary theory:
In 2013, Qingdao was selected as the first batch of cities for the promotion and application of new energy vehicles in China, opening the prelude to the development of new energy vehicles. In 2014, BAIC New Energy, the country's largest new energy vehicle manufacturer at that time, placed its first production base outside Beijing in Qingdao. This is also Qingdao's first comprehensive base for the production and sales of new energy vehicles. By 2017, BAIC BJEV became the first pure electric vehicle company in China with an annual production and sales of more than 100,000 units. Qingdao also ushered in the highlight moment of the new energy vehicle track. Since then, it has ushered in FAW-Volkswagen, Jiefang New Energy, Chery Automobile and other vehicle companies.
But the fate was unlucky. After 2020, under the multiple pressures of shrinking B-end orders, upgrading consumer demand and the epidemic, BAIC New Energy has become the "most unlucky person", and the cold air will inevitably spread to Qingdao.
After Qingdao heavy positions Chery and Gaohe, but Gaohe Automobile, which was introduced two years ago, announced a shutdown for 6 months at the beginning of this year, and fell into the whirlpool of public opinion for a while.
This is the document in May, and it is obvious that Qingdao is going to knock new energy vehicles to death, after all, this is a pig on the tuyere.
In the face of the big wind, there is no city that is not moved, and which enterprise is not moved.
For enterprises, with the opportunities of the times and government support, whoever can succeed will be the next Huawei.
For cities, the essence of competing for the tuyere is to compete for the industry and the future development potential.
Second, a strong bet on the integrated circuit industry.
In addition to making up for the shortcomings of new energy vehicles, integrated circuits are also the key industries emphasized by Qingdao this year.
In February, Qingdao Semiconductor Advanced Equipment R&D and Manufacturing Center Project, Qingdao Topward Chip Testing Industrial Park Project, and Qingdao Mokr Power Chip Testing Project started at the same time.
In March, Foxconn increased its capital by 100 million yuan to build a high-end packaging and testing project for Qingdao new core core.
In April, Qingdao Branch of Zhongkeyi (Nantong) Semiconductor Equipment Co., Ltd. was opened. The R&D and production base project of Hefei Beslan Wet Process Equipment Headquarters and the Kexin Microelectronics Chip Design Headquarters project were officially signed.
In the "Qingdao West Coast Tour of Central Enterprises" held on May 31, the Zhongke Yihai Microelectronics Technology (Suzhou) Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of the Aerospace Information Innovation Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Qingdao Shipbuilding Technology Co., Ltd. of Harbin Engineering University, jointly invested and constructed the Zhongke Yihai Microsystem Project, which is mainly engaged in the R&D and sales of intelligent freezer control chips and a new generation of underwater acoustic equipment chips.
In June, the leading group of Qingdao City once again went south to ask Shenzhen, Shanghai, Yangzhou and other cities.
In Shenzhen, we visited Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., UBTECH Technology Co., Ltd., Extreme Vision Technology Co., Ltd., and Yuntian Changxiang Group; In Shanghai, we visited Shengmei Semiconductor Equipment (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., Shanghai Kaishitong Semiconductor Co., Ltd., Shanghai Chengyi Biotechnology Co., Ltd., Shanghai Hengrui Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., and Zhiche (Shanghai) Industrial Co., Ltd.; In Yangzhou, I visited Jingtong (Gaoyou) Integrated Circuit Co., Ltd.
From the perspective of the itinerary, integrated circuits, artificial intelligence, new energy vehicles, and biomedical enterprises are the focus of this visit, especially integrated circuits, and the goal is also very clear:
Increase the attraction of upstream and downstream enterprises in the industrial chain, and attract more core technology and key components enterprises to land in Qingdao.
The reason why it is concentrated in integrated circuits and science and technology enterprises is because the integrated circuit and electronics industry has been set by the Qingdao Municipal Government as the key to Qingdao's breakthrough.
In 2023, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the National Energy Administration, and the Standardization Administration of the People's Republic of China jointly issued the "Implementation Plan for the New Industry Standardization Pilot Project (2023-2035)", which proposes 8 fields of emerging industries and 9 fields of future industries:
The eight fields of emerging industries include a new generation of information technology, new energy, new materials, high-end equipment, new energy vehicles, green environmental protection, civil aviation, shipbuilding and marine engineering equipment.
The nine fields of the future industry include the metaverse, brain-computer interface, quantum information, humanoid robots, generative artificial intelligence, biomanufacturing, future display, future network, and new energy storage.
This is the key to whether China can become a scientific and technological power, and it is also the key to determining the ups and downs of cities in the future. Whoever can dominate these industries in the future will be the king.
Integrated circuits are one of the new generation of information technology. The new generation of information technology includes next-generation communication networks, the Internet of Things, triple play, new flat panel displays, high-performance integrated circuits and high-end software represented by cloud computing.
Integrated circuits are one of the technologies that China can break through the bottleneck. Since the Sino-US trade friction, the central government has made every effort to tackle key problems in chip technology.
It not only opens tax reduction and tax exemption measures for chip companies, but also creates a fund to support the development of integrated circuits.
Not long ago, the third phase of the National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund Co., Ltd. was established.
Relevant analysis believes that the third phase of the big fund is expected to leverage more than 1 trillion yuan of investment, according to the five-year investment cycle, it is estimated that the amount of funds invested in the manufacturing of advanced integrated circuits is expected to reach 200 billion yuan every year.
From the perspective of cycles, the duration of the first two phases of the National Fund has been as long as 10 years, and the third phase of the newly established National Fund has lasted even longer, up to 15 years.
The agency said that the establishment of the third phase of the National Fund marks a new journey for the domestic semiconductor industry in terms of independent controllability, technological innovation and industrial upgrading, and is expected to continue the localization mission of "strengthening the chain and supplementing the chain".
To this end, Qingdao previously held a meeting on the promotion of the "chain length system" of the key industrial chain, and made it clear that the main leaders of the city's four major teams were appointed as the "chain chief", and the "chain length system" was implemented in depth. Zeng Zanrong served as the "chain chief" of the integrated circuit industry chain, focusing on projects, investment, and investment, which shows that Qingdao attaches great importance to the development of the industry.
Third, bet on the artificial intelligence industry.
At the end of May, Qingdao released the "Qingdao Artificial Intelligence Industry Innovation and Development Action Plan (2024-2026)", which proposes the following goals:
In 2026, the overall level of the city's artificial intelligence industry will be at the forefront of the country, high-level computing power and data infrastructure will continue to be optimized, the marine model and key industry model will be leading in China, and the artificial intelligence technology innovation and empowerment application ecology will be more perfect.
By 2026, the small targets are:
First, we will build 2-3 national-level new-generation artificial intelligence open innovation platforms and more than 5 public service platforms for artificial intelligence industry technology foundation, unveil more than 15 national artificial intelligence innovation tasks, and significantly improve the collaborative innovation ability of the industrial chain.
Second, we will build about 10 artificial intelligence industry agglomeration and empowerment application characteristic parks, cultivate about 20 artificial intelligence subdivision enterprises with industry influence, and accelerate the construction of industrial clusters with concentrated resources and efficient cooperation.
Third, promote the high-quality development of computing infrastructure, and the total scale of computing power will reach 12EFLOPS. The total storage capacity has reached 10 exabytes, the proportion of advanced storage capacity has reached more than 30%, and the disaster recovery coverage rate of core data and important data in key industries has reached 100%.
Fourth, promote the deep integration and enabling application of artificial intelligence technologies and products in various fields of economic and social development, cultivate and promote 200 "artificial intelligence +" typical demonstration application scenarios, and strive to create a national artificial intelligence industry application demonstration base.
For a city, industrial upgrading is the most difficult thing. Because upgrading means change, it means stepping out of your comfort zone, it means facing the unknown, you have to face uncertainty.
Cities, like people, love certainty and hate uncertainty, which is by nature and difficult to change. All the familiar is always good, and the unfamiliar is bad, so most people can't help themselves in their comfort zone.
Moreover, industrial upgrading is a time-consuming and laborious thing that requires a long return cycle, which not only requires long-term investment in patient capital, but also requires continuous support from talents.
However, even so, Qingdao has no way out, and there is only one way in front of Qingdao and many cities.
If it is not broken, most cities can only rise to the challenge, make a desperate bet, and be ready to break the kettle and fight against the water, and give it a go, in order to create opportunities and hope for themselves.