Guangxi-ASEAN Economic and Technological Development Zone: industry-city integration, high-quality development

Nanning, China, Oct. 25, 2022 (ANTARA/Xinhua-AsiaNet) - Recently, the Guangxi-ASEAN Fudi battery project with a total investment of about RMB 8 billion was officially launched in the Guangxi-ASEAN Economic and Technological Development Zone, which is expected to generate an output value of over RMB 10 billion a year and create about 9,000 jobs after the production scale reaches the design capacity. Located in the pivotal development region, north of Nanning, the Guangxi-ASEAN Economic and Technological Development Zone ("Zone"), featuring convenient transportation, beautiful environment, agglomerated industries, pooled human resources, etc., is now speeding up the transformation from a unitary production-oriented park economy to a new area of industry-city integration.

According to Zuo Wei, Party Working Committee Secretary and Director of Guangxi-ASEAN Economic and Technological Development Zone Management Committee, the Zone will be divided into "one belt and four plots" based on three leading industries, namely, a manufacturing industry belt, a Nanning Education Park (west part), a modern agriculture demonstration area, an eco-tourism area, and a high-speed railway north business area. The primary, secondary and tertiary sectors are shoulder-to-shoulder equals that will continue to work on industry-city integration to vigorously spur the development of the Zone with high quality.

From the beginning of 2022, the Zone has taken the introduction of competitive and lucrative projects and businesses as the core of developing the industrial chain and the focus of bringing in investment and talent worldwide. In the first half of the year, nine industrial projects with a total investment of over RMB 50 million, 18 projects started, five projects in production, 22 headquarters companies and 32 high and new tech enterprises introduced, and 553 new market entities added in the Zone.

After years of development, the Zone has gradually formed three leading industrial patterns of green food, new materials and advanced equipment manufacturing, gathering the Fortune Global 500 and China's top 500 enterprises such as Budweiser, COFCO Group, Shuanghui, Cargill, BYD, and Pearl River, as well as Chinese famous brand enterprises like Li-Ning and Toly Bread. At present, among the 4,698 companies settled in the Zone, there are more than 550 industrial companies, 147 industrial businesses above the scale, and 37 enterprises that achieved an output value of over RMB 100 million in 2021; as of August this year, there are 48 above-the-scale food processing and related companies, realizing an output value of RMB 5.091 billion, accounting for 51.4% of the total production value of industrial enterprises above designated size.

To stimulate the innovation vitality of enterprises, the Zone will give more long-term support for scientific and technological innovation to accelerate the convergence of multifarious innovation elements in businesses. The Zone lays out the innovation chain around the industrial chain to expedite the cultivation of new driving forces for industrial transformation and upgrading: relying on more than 100 specialty food companies to promote the integrated development of the specialty food processing industry chain and innovation chain, creating four municipal-level and above R&D platforms in total, approving six food high-tech firms, three smart factory demonstration companies of Guangxi, and one digital workshop of the province; at the same time pushing on the "industry-college-institute cooperation" after the Nanning Education Park is built, and exploring the local innovation and entrepreneurship of the students who graduated from colleges and universities through the construction of a "business startups and innovation street", in hopes of creating a good ecology for training innovation-minded personnel and building a talent pool.