How strong is Shanghai, an economically strong town? What is the reason behind the long-lasting prosperity
On December 1, 2009, the first township level rural collective economic cooperative in Shanghai was established in Xinqiao Town, Songjiang District. As the suburban junction of Shanghai's metropolis, Xinqiao Town has innovatively used township cooperatives as a carrier for cooperation with the national development zone Caohejing to jointly develop 1037 acres of land on the north side of Xinzhuan Road and build a high-tech park - Lingang Songjiang Science and Technology City.
The fact has proven that this innovative model is feasible. Over the years, the dividends brought by the development of Lingang Songjiang Science and Technology City have brought fruitful results to the economic development of the town: the backward workshop economy and factory economy have successfully transformed into a new type of park economy led by science and technology innovation. The average tax revenue per mu of developed land is more than three times that of the average level in Shanghai. Farmers become "shareholders", holding a share of collective assets and enjoying the dividends of asset appreciation. The industry refers to this successful example of transformation and upgrading of suburban township industrial parks as the "New Bridge Model".
However, entering a new stage of development, "top students" also face development challenges: the regional development leader Lingang Songjiang Science and Technology City has slowed down its growth rate, and the driving effect of the park as a functional platform is not obvious; Insufficient industrial land and inefficient industrial land renewal facing bottlenecks; The level of integration between industry and city is insufficient, and public facilities such as transportation, education, and commerce are insufficient, lacking attractiveness to talents. As the bridgehead of the G60 Science and Technology Innovation Corridor, how can Xinqiao Town leverage its strengths and explore new "new bridge models" in response to new challenges?
From "Is there investment?" to "Is there technology?"
Analyzing the economic development data of Xinqiao Town in recent years, it can be found that on the one hand, Xinqiao's economic development is being impacted, and the growth rate of Lingang Songjiang Science and Technology City, which accounts for half of the tax revenue, is slowing down; Due to the basic completion of urbanization in Xinqiao and the trend towards the end of real estate development, the financial and tax contributions of the real estate industry have sharply decreased to negligible levels.
On the other hand, a group of small and medium-sized enterprises with strong resistance to fluctuations have emerged in Xinqiao, which has played a role as a ballast stone in the increase in tax revenue. These enterprises are basically specialized, refined, and innovative, with a stable market and strong product bargaining power. After hedging, Xinqiao's economic development in recent years has continued to rank among the top in Songjiang, with a total tax revenue of 2.6 billion yuan in the first half of the year, showing strong resilience.
Why does this phenomenon occur? Many years ago, Xinqiao, relying on its proximity to the urban area, introduced a group of manufacturing enterprises represented by Longgong, ushering in its first wave of great development. But with changes in economic cycles, a group of traditional manufacturing industries with insufficient product competitiveness have seen their profits narrow or even suffer losses. At the same time, Songjiang is also in a critical stage of transformation where economic structural issues are increasingly prominent, and its development is stuck in a bottleneck. How to break the game?
In 2016, Songjiang creatively proposed the strategic concept of building the G60 Science and Technology Innovation Corridor based on its own reality, promoting the development path of "science and technology innovation+industry".
According to the positioning of Xinqiao as the bridgehead of the G60 science and technology innovation corridor by the Songjiang District Committee, Xinqiao Town has decided to focus on developing a "specialized, refined, unique, and new" economy. Instead of pursuing large enterprises that are "not worried about marriage," it is better to attract and cultivate "specialized, refined, unique, and new" small and medium-sized enterprises that focus on segmented markets, have strong innovation capabilities, high market share, and master key core technologies.
After reaching a consensus throughout the town, the concept of attracting investment in Xinqiao has changed. When it comes to attracting projects, the previous question was: "Is there investment?" "Is there tax?" Now the question is: "Is there technology?" In terms of energy consumption, industrial land and other indicators, Xinqiao Town will tilt precious land resources and other resources towards "specialized, refined, unique, and new" enterprises. At present, there are a total of 21 specialized and innovative "little giant" enterprises in Xinqiao.
"Among the 21 small giant enterprises, most of them are acquiring land and building factories in Xinqiao," said Shen Yaoting, Deputy Mayor of Xinqiao Town. After the modern manufacturing industry reaches a certain scale, they often hope to build modern new industrial plants that integrate research and development, office production, and other functions.
With years of development, Xinqiao Town no longer has vacant industrial land and can only turn to inefficient land. For example, Weitu, the hidden champion enterprise in the industrial cabinet industry, originally had 180 acres of industrial land, but the plot ratio was only 0.48. In recent years, enterprises have been in need of expanding production capacity. Encouraged by Xinqiao Town, enterprises have increased their plot ratio through factory renovation and expansion, almost doubling their usable area. It is expected that the output value will also double from last year's 1.4 billion yuan.
Specialized, refined, and innovative small and giant enterprises with bargaining power often do not lack profits, and many companies pay tens of millions of yuan in taxes before acquiring land. The data shows that if the industrial land sold in Xinqiao Town in recent years is converted into square meters at a plot ratio of 2.0, it can reach a tax standard of 1500 yuan per square meter per year, which is basically close to the level of building economic output.
The combination of "little giants" creates a "big block"
Liantai Technology is a national level specialized and innovative small giant in the 3D printing manufacturing industry, occupying the largest global market share in the field of photocuring technology. For many years, Liantai Technology has been dedicated to researching technology in the buildings of Lingang Songjiang Science and Technology City, with an annual revenue growth of 50%. In the first two years, Liantai Technology developed to a certain scale, with more than 300 employees and a factory that needed to conduct experiments and production. So, with the coordination of the park and the government of Xinqiao, the enterprise obtained a piece of industrial land that belonged to itself, and remained in the park for research and development, production, sales, and other businesses suitable for placement in the building.
In recent years, such examples have been common. With the tacit cooperation between Xinqiao Town and the Lingang team, an ecological loop for cultivating science and technology innovation enterprises has gradually formed: science and technology innovation start-ups often have limited space requirements, and there is enough space in the G60 Science and Technology Cloud Corridor, the carrier of Lingang Songjiang Science and Technology City, to incubate and cultivate enterprises; After the enterprise grows to a certain scale in the building, production-oriented service industry enterprises can continue to lease or buy buildings, while enterprises that need a production and research and development base can go to the Xinqiao Industrial Park to obtain land.
This model can avoid some difficulties faced by local governments in attracting investment. A few enterprises, under the banner of "high precision and cutting-edge", demand local governments to support the development of science and technology innovation, and use this as a pretext to acquire land, but in reality, they are playing the trick of "enclosure" and developing industrial real estate. Xinqiao can accurately identify such enterprises through closed-loop cultivation of science and technology innovation enterprises.
More practically, this can empower the traditional manufacturing industry. As a manufacturing hub in Songjiang, although Xinqiao has a leading economic scale with over 2000 physical enterprises, it still faces structural imbalances - the production service industry is relatively lagging behind, making it difficult to provide strong support for the manufacturing industry's technological level, industrial competitiveness, and product added value. Through cooperation with Lingang Songjiang Technology City, this issue has been resolved.
Previously, Xinyi Electric, a company in Xinqiao Town, experienced production stagnation due to international supply chain issues and a lack of compatible electronic components. There are billions of types of electronic components available, which may be difficult to match for a while, and the cost of trial and error is extremely high. The delivery of the order is imminent, and the company is about to breach the contract.
At a critical moment, Xinqiao Town approached Yunhan Xincheng, a production-oriented service industry enterprise located in Lingang Songjiang Science and Technology City. As a digital cloud manufacturing service platform for the electronic industry, Yunhanxincheng has analyzed massive data to accurately match domestic electronic components for Chengyi Electric, and completed subsequent design processes such as schematic diagrams and chip programs to solve urgent problems.
According to Xue Youtian, the General Manager of Lingang Songjiang Technology City Investment and Development Co., Ltd., by systematically promoting the coordinated development of productive service industry and advanced manufacturing industry, the tropical rainforest like industrial ecology has become the most distinctive feature of Xinqiao in attracting investment.
Nowadays, in Xinqiao, a large number of specialized, refined, and innovative small and medium-sized enterprises are full of vitality, forming a diverse and differentiated industrial ecosystem, with each "little giant" enterprise forming a "big block". Many industries may not necessarily be towering or even inconspicuous, but they can help big trees take root and form the diversity of tropical rainforests. Wu Chaofeng, the mayor of Xinqiao Town, said that the industrial cluster and alliance of the G60 Science and Technology Innovation Corridor further highlight the integration function of the Xinqiao industrial chain, effectively improving the resilience, security level, and core competitiveness of the industrial chain and supply chain.
Optimizing the allocation of resource elements towards the Yangtze River Delta
Every night when the lights are on, people driving on the G60 Shanghai Kunming Expressway are unconsciously attracted to the G60 Science and Technology Innovation Cloud Corridor. Yunlang, with a total length of 1.5 kilometers, is known as the industrial corridor of the world's greatest city and also the urban reception hall of Xinqiao Town.
"The G60 science and innovation cloud corridor has the distinctive characteristics of innovation subjects like clouds, funds like clouds, and Internet clouds." Xue Youtian said that we should use the cloud corridor as the intersection of the G60 science and innovation corridor in the Yangtze River Delta and the north-south expansion belt of the Hongqiao International Open Hub, and build a resource element optimization allocation center for the Yangtze River Delta.
For Xinqiao, this functional positioning has exceeded the scope of an economically strong town in a sense, and development needs to be considered in regional coordination. This is both a challenge and an opportunity.
Previously, after a high-quality enterprise grew and expanded in Yunlang, it needed a large number of industrial factories for production, which was difficult to achieve in Shanghai. Coincidentally, Jinhua City has established a collaborative innovation center and a "science and technology innovation enclave" in the G60 Science and Technology Innovation Cloud Corridor. The park will promote the enterprise to Jinhua City and invest in this enterprise through industrial investment funds, building a new integrated development model with R&D headquarters in Shanghai and production and manufacturing in the local area.
There are many examples like this. In recent years, Xinqiao Town has promoted industrial development through the "fund+base" model, upgrading and building a number of integrated professional technical platforms for "research to incubation and investment". At present, through industrial investment and financing, G60 Science and Technology Innovation Cloud Gallery has gathered more than 10 projects in industrial Internet related fields such as Maggie Technology, Boxin Robot, and formed an industrial agglomeration effect with a large number of leading industrial Internet platforms such as Haier COSMOPLAT, UFIDA Smart.
Building an industrial community that does not close for 16 hours is the finishing touch in the process of exploring the integration of industry and city in Xinqiao. Looking at the world, most technology parks are located in suburban cities with relatively incomplete supporting functions. Most of the talents who settle in enterprises choose to live in the city center or sub center far from the park, and commuting has become the biggest obstacle to the introduction of industrial population, and has also become a heart knot for the settled enterprises.
However, the G60 Science and Technology Innovation Cloud Corridor is different, it is a "borderless city". There is no wall or boundary between the industries and communities in Yunlangli, making it both an industrial park and a city for daily life. At the end of last year, the construction of the western extension of Metro Line 12 officially began, with the establishment of G60 Cloud Corridor Station, filling the most important puzzle of the modern comprehensive transportation system around Cloud Corridor, and the degree of integration between industry and city is increasing.
As the G60 Science and Technology Innovation Cloud Corridor region continues to develop rapidly and become a coveted destination for outstanding innovative talents worldwide, there is another challenge facing the leadership of Xinqiao Town - compared to the Cloud Corridor region, other areas of Xinqiao Town lag behind in development. Taking roads as an example, the poor road conditions and narrow roads in old towns and industrial areas do not match the level of economic development. However, road reconstruction and expansion also involve the relocation of enterprises and residents on both sides.
New Bridge is exploring solutions to this problem, and a comprehensive three-dimensional transportation system is steadily being constructed. "The good method to solve practical problems is the golden idea we need to implement. The optimal solution to each problem is the new 'New Bridge Model'," said Li Yi, Secretary of the Party Committee of Xinqiao Town.
