By Cheng Jiajia
Tapping into domestic demand is key to promoting the sustained economic growth of China, the first major economy to resume growth since the outbreak of COVID-19. The "2021 Shanghai Online New Economy Development White Paper" shows that the online new economy has become the new engine of Shanghai's economic development, with momentum in multiple fields.
It is planned to introduce, cultivate and develop more than 30 leading online new economy enterprises and more than 3,000 innovative enterprises in this field by 2025, with an industrial size exceeding RMB 300 billion ... On 4 January 2021, many major projects in Shanghai were kicked off simultaneously. The "Changyang Show Belt" Shanghai Online New Economy Park was officially inaugurated and promoted to the world as a featured industrial park at the Shanghai Global Investment Promotion Conference on 7 April.
A series of targeted policies on the above mentioned park were released at the 2021 Shanghai Online New Economy Summit on 17 May. In the next three years, the Yangpu District will, making full use of the park and mobilizing the resources of the whole district, strive to build an industry base to lead China's online new economy, thus turning itself into the first choice for digital transformation, pooling talents, innovating business models, integrating applications, and piloting new policies. Yangpu aims to develop the base into Shanghai's landmark of innovation to participate in international competition and cooperation.
The reporter learned from the Summit that the newly released policies cover 10 aspects including inclusive and prudential supervision, land supply, and talent attraction. Focusing on new business formats and models, they intend to create the best environment and provide the best services for the development of online new economy through the following measures.
"Ample space for development"
Yangpu District is currently preparing a detailed plan for the development of the "Changyang Show Belt" online new economy park based on corresponding industrial and spatial planning. According to the plan, the online new economy belt will cover an area of 7.46 square kilometers in the riverside area of the district, and a "Headquarters Park" and a "R&D Park" will also be built with a total floor space of nearly 8 million square meters. It's planned to attract and support leading enterprises in online new economy, and turn the online new economy park into a landmark industry park with complete industry chain, sound business ecosystem and adequate resources.
"Preferential policies on land supply"
The online new economy park will adopt three development models: municipal-district joint reserve, district government-enterprise cooperative development, and transformation of local enterprises. While strengthening government guidance, Yangpu District will make full use of market mechanisms and introduce diversified capital to jointly promote the development of the park. It will strengthen life-cycle management of industrial land transfer, enhance linkage between land use and project development, implement land supply listing mechanism for industrial projects, connect land price with project performance, give priority to the land supply for key projects in the online new economy park, thus effectively reducing the land cost for quality enterprises.
"Support scenario application"
Not long ago, Yangpu released a list of 10 categories of digital application scenarios development. Next, it will continue to support the demonstration and application of new technologies, new products, new business formats and models, and encourage enterprises in the park to create more application scenario commercialization projects. Yangpu will provide financial support equivalent to 30% of the total investment (up to RMB 2 million) for projects with major demonstration effects. The park will give priority to the development of new information infrastructure such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud computing, Internet of Things, and 5G networks, accelerate the construction of two-way data interface between government and enterprises, encourage the development of international open-source projects and communities, amid its efforts to build an open, integrated, and innovative ecosystem to lead the development of online new economy.
"Policies for attracting talents"
There are 10 well-known universities in Yangpu District, such as Fudan University and Tongji University, which can provide powerful intellectual support for the development of the new economy; each year, about a quarter of the city's university graduates seek jobs in new economy, injecting inexhaustible human resources into new economy enterprises. Yangpu will help facilitate the school-enterprises cooperation in targeted talent cultivation for enterprises; establish and improve a talents service system which can attract urgently needed talents for key employers, provide "one-on-one" personalized talent solutions, and implement enterprise-specific and market-oriented approach to take care of people's need for housing, children's education and health service.
"Resource support for online new economy"
Yangpu will strengthen the overall planning of financial funds and introduce special policies to support the cultivation of online new economy enterprises, the development of scenario application and the construction of the new economy park. A maximum of RMB 200 million per year (RMB 600 million for three years) in financial support will be given to the leading online new economy enterprises and high-quality projects in the park. The district will also initiate a "Changyang Show Belt" online new economy fund of RMB 1 billion to leverage RMB 10 billion of private capital; facilitate the establishment of the "Pujiang Galaxy" new-generation Internet enterprise club as a platform for industry exchanges and cooperation; improve the communication channels between government and enterprises; and attract more investment institutions, industry associations and service platforms into the park.
