Aerial photo shows a photovoltaic power station in Yongren county, Yunnan's Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture. (PHOTO: XINHUA)

By CHEN Chunyou

When talking about Yunnan province, people always mention minerals, plateau agriculture, and culture tourism, which are truly traditional pillar industries in the past. But today, Yunnan is going all out to become the country's photovoltaic hub by relying on its inborn resources and innovation environment.

A lot of photovoltaic manufacturing enterprises are located in cities of Qujing, and Baoshan, including LONGi Green Energy Technology Co., Ltd., a giant clean energy company. Many other photovoltaic upstream and downstream enterprises producing modules, inverters, and intelligent photovoltaic products followed suit and settled here, forming a strong industrial cluster.

Currently, Yunnan has the largest production base for producing monocrystalline silicon photovoltaic materials in China, with an output accounting for about 23 percent of the country.

In addition, to strengthen the cooperation with South and Southeast Asian countries, the Ministry of Science and Technology and Yunnan province have jointly established the China-South Asia Technology Transfer Center and the China-ASEAN Innovation Center, to help local enterprises go global. Many local photovoltaic enterprises have also set up branches in neighboring countries, such as Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia to expand their market.

Talented personnel is also a key resource. In order to give more vitality to industrial development, Yunnan made a series of talent-supporting policies in 2022, vowing to spend four billion RMB every year to cultivate high-level talented individuals, supporting their research projects, offering them conveniences in terms of housing, children's schooling and medical security, and creating platforms to enhance regional communication.

This November, at the forum centered on the development of the new energy battery industry under the 6th Yunnan Conference on International Exchange of Professionals, academicians and entrepreneurs at home and abroad expressed their confidence in the province's future low-carbon development.

Rudolf Scharping, chairman of Germany's Rudolf Scharping Consulting (Beijing) Co., Ltd., said he acknowledged Yunnan's huge potential, rich resources and strong desire to accelerate development. He was willing to help in investment negotiations and industry promotion in Germany and other European countries, so as to facilitate bilateral business exchanges and industrial cooperation.