Regional coordination, key to Shanghai's Technology corridor

The Streaming down the Yangtze team visited Shanghai on Monday.

Science and technology have been an important factor in Shanghai's economic growth in the past two decades, helping to increase productivity in manufacturing.

Visitors have a tour at the Science and Tech Corridor in Songjiang District, Shanghai, May 28, 2018. [Photo: IC]

Songjiang district launched a Science and Tech Corridor in 2017 to boost technology development throughout the Yangtze River Delta.

Our reporter Min Rui is in Shanghai with the "Streaming down the Yangtze" team. We earlier had a conversation with her on the "Beijing Hour".

So first of all, please tell us more about this SciTech corridor.

The SciTech corridor is named after an expressway, the G60 express way, and is designed to boost technology development throughout the Yangtze River Delta, including the cities of Shanghai, Jiaxing and Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province.

It was first launched in 2017, and now it is home to many tech companies like Honeywell, Panasonic, Emerson and Quanta Computer. I witnessed on Monday the opening of a  Xiaomi’s R&D center there.

Apart from the tech firms, the corridor can link up nine industrial parks, creating new industrial chains.

Songjiang district’s first campaign is to change the slogan “made in Songjiang” to “high-tech Songjiang”.

The local officials proudly introduced me a robot center in Dongjing Town, called the CSG Robot Base.

The site aims to manufacture robots for industrial use, medical services and artificial intelligence systems.

In the future CSG robots will be able to do remote-control medical diagnosis via the Internet and offer home nursing services to the elderly.

As you mentioned earlier, the corridor linked up several cities in the area. How does that work?

To enhance regional cooperation in all areas, an integration office was set up to earlier this year to help all 26 cities in the region to work together under one umbrella.

It is high time for the regional cooperation of the Yangtze River Delta region to be deepened in a comprehensive way.

As what I said yesterday, the Yangtze River Delta is China’s richest region, we are talking about 20 percent of China's GDP and 10 percent of its population, which equals to the size of a small European country.

So how to effectively allocate resources and optimize cooperation, while balancing the development and keeping up the growth momentum is what both the local enterprises and the government going to find out.

From what I learned, Shanghai will still play a strategic role as a world-class core city, sharing its researches and experiences to facilitate the production of more cutting-edge technological achievements in the area.

Speaking of Shanghai, a big import expo is slated in November this year. So is there anything new on that front?

China will present the world business community a first-rate international import expo in Shanghai, which will be held from Nov 5 to 10.

This will be the first Import Expo which combines country exhibitions, enterprise exhibitions and many forums too.

In Shanghai, people from all walks of life have geared up for the preparation work.

Major projects are mostly finished, with a few remains the construction state, but at a fast pace with steady progress.

This is not the first time for Shanghai to host such large scale international event. In 2010, Shanghai hosed the world expo.

So far, many heads of states and governments have confirmed attendance.

Over 2,800 companies from 130 countries and regions have also confirmed participation.

As reflected in the blue-and-yellow scarf worn by expo mascot Jinbao, the event embodies the Belt & Road Initiative, representing China's new round of reform and opening-up for a shared future with the world.

That was CRI's Min Rui in Shanghai.