On March 28, CCID Consulting Urban Economic Research Center released the 2023 CCID Top 100 Innovation Districts Research Report. Three districts in Foshan are on the list, namely Shunde (ranking 14th), Nanhai (ranking 21st) and Chancheng (ranking 37th).

Photo by Rong Zhuhua

For this year's report, CCID has built an urban innovation evaluation index system with 4 first-level indicators, namely innovation ecology, innovation power, innovation subjects, and innovation achievements, and 16 second-level indicators such as regional GDP, R&D input intensity, and number of high-tech enterprises, carrying out a comprehensive analysis of urban innovation elements such as urban innovation environment, services, subjects, and results.

Innovation is the key momentum of high-quality development of the manufacturing industry. As a major manufacturing city, Foshan attaches great importance to improving innovation capabilities. In the Action Plan on High-quality Promotion of Manufacturing Industry (hereinafter referred to as the “Action Plan”) released on March 10 this year, Foshan clearly adheres to the principle that technology and innovation are leading features, and by 2026, the R&D investment intensity of manufacturing enterprises should increase by 25% compared with 2022.

Photo by Xiao Xiangqin

The Action Plan proposes to focus on improving the innovation capabilities of manufacturing industry from four major directions, namely, building a major innovation platform linking the manufacturing industry, giving play to the main role of enterprise scientific research, creating a vivid situation of collaborative innovation and deepening the reform of the scientific and technological system.

According to the Action Plan, Foshan will encourage enterprises to set up R&D institutions, among which the leading units approved to build national key laboratories and provincial key laboratories will be given 30 million yuan and 3 million yuan respectively. The Action Plan also proposes to promote the establishment of R&D institutions in all manufacturing enterprises with an annual output value of more than 1 billion yuan, improving the coverage of R&D institutions in industrial enterprises above the scale. Additionally, the Action Plan plans to start the cultivation project of high-tech enterprises, prospecting no less than 1,000 new high-tech enterprises every year.

Reporter | Tang

Revisor | Eleanor, Jessica