An aerial view of the creative and high-tech industrial parks in Xinbei district, Changzhou. (PHOTO: VCG)

By Staff Reporters

Located in east China's Jiangsu province, Changzhou city has been keen to implement an innovation-driven strategy, to promote the development of a green, intelligent, specialized, and high-end manufacturing industry, and build a sustainable modern industry system.

To optimize the innovation ecosystem, the city has continuously improved its policy system, by proposing more policies to spur innovation and break through bottlenecks in development.

It has established the innovation committee and office at different levels, so as to effectively mobilize and stimulate the innovation vitality of the society as a whole. At the same time, fiscal funds go directly to enterprises. Currently, a total of 940 million RMB has been cashed out to support enterprises' innovation.

Seizing new opportunities for the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta region, Changzhou has increased its investment in science and technology, striving to promote the building of a national independent innovation demonstration zone. The proportion of R&D expenditures in the regional GDP has increased from 2.77 percent in 2017 to 3.33 percent in 2022.

The Changzhou Science and Education Town has become one of the best innovative parks in the country. It has incubated nearly 3,000 high-tech companies and established 47 innovation and entrepreneurship platforms.

Changzhou has made efforts to enhance its industrial technology innovation capabilities and created a number of high-tech, specialized industries with core competitiveness in the fields of new energy, new materials, intelligent manufacturing, and biomedicine.

In addition, through the continuous cooperation between industries, universities and research institutions, Changzhou has launched more than 2,000 innovative projects. With its talent plan, the city has supported various kinds of professional individuals and teams to innovate.

The contribution rate of sci-tech progress to the city's economic development has increased from 62.8 percent in 2017 to 66.7 percent in 2022, while the number of patents owned by 10,000 people has increased from 28.6 in 2017 to 44.8 in 2022.

To promote international cooperation, the city has also partnered with cities from other countries. The China-Israel Changzhou Innovation Park has introduced a total of 163 Israeli or China-Israel cooperative enterprises, and facilitated 44 China-Israel scientific and technological cooperation projects.