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| In the past 15 years, Suzhou Industrial Park has introduced, absorbed, digested, and applied Singapore experience and obtained fruitful results. Setting up a series of scientific and strict systems on planning, construction, and management |
--------People's Daily, May 25, 2009 |
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>> A Role Model for Development Zones in China
Adopting the experience of Singapore and international practice on city planning and construction, Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP) compiled a visionary and scientific master plan on development as well as over 400 specific plans, achieving a complete planning system. All the planned projects must follow strict bidding procedures and the land parcels without specific purpose in short term must be under flexible control so as to improve land development efficiency and the level of its intensive use.
SIP emphasizes the implementation of plans and sticks to the approved plans as the guidelines for construction, and ensures the authority and mandatory enforcement of planning and would veto down any projects in violation of planning with one vote.
According to the principle of planning before construction and giving priority to subterranean construction, SIP has built key infrastructure for the stage ahead, followed the plans on area functions as well as control indices, evaluated the impact of key projects on environment, introduced one-stop examination and approval procedure as well as public bidding system for all construction projects. It's required that all construction projects should use commercial concrete so as to guarantee the quality of buildings.
>> Building the First City Landscape Garden in China
The two projects of Jinji Lake landscape garden and city landscape fully demonstrate the high level of planning in SIP.
In 1997, SIP built the country's first city landscape garden in cooperation with an international company. The 513-hectare open city garden centering on Jinji Lake features the interactions among buildings, the lake, and people, integrating traditions and modernity and, based on the eight scenic areas around the lake, offers comprehensive services of business, shopping, convention and exhibition, cinema and theater, recreation and culture, and tourism.
Since 2004, SIP has made three adjustments to the plans so as to ensure sufficient land reserve for green area and parks. At present, its ecological framework covers one green circle for environmental protection, three lakes, four gardens, six ecological corridors, and twelve community gardens. |
| Suzhou Industrial Park is the first among national development zones to implement the three action plans of industrial upgrading, service sector multiple growth, and technological leap growth, actively promoting the integration of using international capital and learning cutting-edge technologies so as to promote the industrial transformation and upgrading, and to switch from "made in Suzhou" to "created in Suzhou". |
--------Xinhua Daily, May 24, 2009 |
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>> Achieving Coordinated Development of Advanced Industries and Promoting clustering by Industrial Upgrading
In 2005, SIP started to industrial upgrading campaign by focusing on the harmonious development of advanced manufacturing and hi-tech sectors.
After several years of growth, SIP now has hi-tech industrial clusters in the fields of electronic information, precision machinery, bio-medicine, and new materials, serving as the base for 125 projects launched by 79 Global Fortune-500 companies, including 101 projects with an investment 100 million US dollars each and six projects with an investment of over one billion dollars each. During the past one and half decades, both its industrial economic aggregate and comprehensive strength have kept increasing. In 2008, its IT technology, integrated circuit, and offshore outsourcing output value accounted for 3%, 17%, and 8.8% of the national total respectively.
SIP emphasizes the leading role of investment promotion and exploits fully the institutional advantages of China-Singapore cooperation mechanism, sticking to the principles of giving equal stress to big and small projects, domestic and foreign investment, secondary and tertiary sectors, as well as current project upgrade and project number increase. SIP set up several professional teams to identify and grasp more investment opportunities.
SIP also advocates the concept of actively choosing the investors and the capital. In recent years, along with the new trend of economic globalization and industrial transfer, SIP tends to favor IT projects, service sector, and projects of high taxability so as to change from "attracting investment" to "selecting investment" and "attracting talents".
>> Creating New Silicon Valley and Realizing Technological Leap Growth
SIP has always taken technological progress as the foundation for its growth and sustainability. By emphasizing the improvement of independent innovation and innovative integration capacities, instead of being driven by investment and depending on resources, it aims to develop on the basis of innovations and state-of-the-art technologies so as to accomplish the transformation of "Made in SIP" to "Created in SIP".
SIP has issued a dozen of supporting policies to encourage the cultivation of independent innovation and building an innovative park. In addition, it helped the leading technological talents to start their own businesses by granting the starting fund of over 10 million yuan, making it one of the areas in the country providing the most financial support to IT professionals in starting business.
With a total of 18 public technological service platforms covering IC design and bio-medicine, SIP managed to gather more than 60 venture capital and guarantee companies. To speed up the pace of promoting leading industries into high value-added stage, SIP has 145 R&D institutions and set forth relevant policies and measures to develop more potentials of innovation.
At the breakout of the financial crisis, SIP authorities arranged on-site visits to enterprise and provided necessary IT services. They also take it as their task to get the much-needed bank loans and fiscal subsidies for the companies, help IT and R&D businesses to obtain the state certification on hi-tech enterprises. As a result, a total of 140 companies have got the certificates issued by the State since 2009.
>> Modern Service Sector as New Growth Engine
In 2005, SIP launched Service Sector Multiple Growth Project and planned to quadruple the number of brand projects in tertiary industry, to double the business area, to quadruple the value-added services, and to increase the proportion of service sector in GDP by 1-2 percent on a yearly basis in five years.
Since then, SIP has managed to optimize its economic structure. By replacing energy-consuming industries with highly efficient and advanced industries and by optimizing the secondary sectors and greatly promoting the tertiary industry, SIP has realized a rapid growth of new service projects for three years in succession in comparison with the increase of manufacturing projects. In 2008, the added value of service sector accounts for 30% of GDP for the first time and the proportion keeps increasing at a speed of 2% every year.
The Jinji Lake-Rim CBD plays a leading role in promoting modern service industry in SIP by attracting increasingly more branded businesses and producing a group of functional highlights including National Pilot Base of Service Outsourcing and Integrated Free Trade Zone. Outsourcing sector becomes a new growth source in SIP and during January through August 2009, the output value and offshore income of service outsourcing increased by 35.9% and 108% respectively.
Currently, SIP has three mainstays in support of the service sector, namely, the traditional services such as hotel and restaurants, the modern services of logistics and financing, and the rising service outsourcing industry. |
| Suzhou Industrial Park sticks to the scientific outlook of centering on environment and ecology so as to realize a harmonious economic, social, and environmental growth and to create favorable investment environment and human settlements. In its history of 15 years, it grows from an industrial park to a pilot ecological park and then to current new city district featuring ecological civilization. In this sense, it explores a new-type industrialization path by integrating technological innovation, recycling economy, energy conservation, and environment-friendly industries. |
--------China Environment News, May 18, 2009 |
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>> Ecological and Environmental Protection in the Forefront
In it 15-year history, SIP has always followed the established guidelines of pursuing comprehensive, harmonious, and sustainable development, reducing the amount of energy consumption to 0.36 ton of standard coal equivalent per ten thousand yuan GDP, and the emission of COD and SO2 to 1/18 and 1/40 of national averages, which means SIP becomes one of the national leaders in terms of energy conservation and ecological protection.
Currently, SIP has 45% and a total of 33.67 million square meters of green area, obtained the ISO14000 certification for environment, became one of the first National Pilot Ecological Industrial Parks, registering several records among national development zones in terms of total coverage of environmental-protection infrastructure, of green towns and villages, and with the most local enterprises meeting ISO14001 standards.
Provisional Measures on Environmental Protection and Management of Construction Projects was the first regulatory document issued by SIP since its founding. In 15 years, about 300 projects with a total investment of two billion US dollars have been vetoed due to environment-related issues.
In 2009, SIP initiated ecological optimization campaign aimed to build a pilot ecological city district of green lifestyle and sustainable industrial and social growth. |
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