Guangzhou's Industrial Upgrading Unleashes Innovation Potential

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GUANGZHOU, China, June 12, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- For more than 2000 years, Guangzhou has been the trade center of southern China. Its prominent status in trade has earned it the reputation of "Millennia Business City". Since China implemented its policy of reform and opening up in 1978, Guangzhou has been right at the forefront.

Guangzhou, one of the most dynamic economic areas across the globe, has been the pioneer in opening up China to the world over the past 30 years. In 2016, the city's GDP reached about two trillion yuan ($294.4bn), equivalent to that of Singapore and neighboring Hong Kong.

With great importance attached to innovation, various enterprises in Guangzhou have remained competitive into the modern era along with the industrial upgrading that the city's shared.

Pearl River Piano Group, the world-renowned piano maker, is among many traditional enterprises that have weathered severe market competition in Guangzhou. Amid intense competition though, the company has stayed vigorous through continued innovation since its foundation in 1956, its spokesperson Yang Weihua said.

Now it has more than 25 per cent of the global market share of piano sales generated from some 100 countries and regions. Thanks to that, the company has been named the world's largest piano maker in 16 consecutive years. In May last year, it bought a 90 per cent shareholding in Schimmel, Germany's largest piano maker, in an attempt to enter the high-end piano market.

In recent years, Guangzhou has been encouraging enterprises in the traditional sectors to invest in upgrading technology, with an emphasis on smart manufacturing and robotics. In the vehicle manufacturing industry, the number of robots for welding and spraying used by auto makers such as Dongfeng Nissan, Guangqi Toyota and Guangqi Honda has exceeded 400.

According to the Industry and Information Technology Commission of Guangzhou Municipality, besides automobile manufacturing, robotics and smart devices are being widely used in more than 10 industries, such as petrochemicals, electronics and furniture manufacturing. By the end of last year, about 600 enterprises in Guangzhou were using automated production lines.

Apart from technological upgrading, the city is gaining new momentum by earnestly fostering emerging strategic industries. According to the latest plan of the Guangzhou municipal government, the IAB scheme adopted by the city, aimed to shore up such emerging strategic industries as information technology, artificial intelligence and biopharmaceutical, is expected to enhance its attractiveness, creativity and competitiveness by creating industrial clusters worth hundreds of billions of output value.

In the electronic information manufacturing industry, the only new display cluster that generates hundreds of billions of output value has been born. Ten new display makers with 139.3 billion yuan ($20.5bn) worth altogether, including LG Display and Skyworth, have ranked the top 20 electronic information manufacturing enterprises in Guangzhou. With Foxconn's eco-industrial park for its 10.5-generation display settling down in the Zengcheng District, Guangzhou, in what has been the biggest single investment in advanced manufacturing since China's reform and opening-up policy, Guangzhou's new display manufacturing industry is embracing a fresh boost. The first phase of the project, worth 61 billion yuan ($8.97bn), was launched in March 2017, in a move that is expected to attract an influx of some 70 companies related to the Taiwanese multinational to Guangzhou. Upon its completion in June 2019, the project is forecast to generate an output value of 92 billion yuan ($13.5bn) in an effort to make Guangzhou a global hub of display technology.

SOURCE Guangzhou Municipal Government