New quality productive forces are key for China to continue building a modern industrial system and attain sustainable development. The strategy, first mentioned by Chinese President Xi Jinping last September, is also crucial for achieving the objectives and tasks set out in the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) in its final year of implementation.
With innovation playing the leading role, new quality productive forces mean advanced productivity that is freed from traditional growth constraints, features high technology, high efficiency and high quality, and is aligned with the new development philosophy.
Shanghai is taking the lead in relying on new quality productive forces to propel the intelligent, green and high-end development of industries, and improve the resilience and security of industrial and supply chains.
As a vanguard of reform and opening up, and pioneer of innovative development, the city has chosen technology innovation as a major driver of its high-quality economic development. The city saw the registration of approximately 370 technology companies every day in 2023 on average, according to Qu Wei, deputy director of the Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality.
The world’s first macaques cloned from somatic cells and the world’s first artificial single-chromosome eukaryotic cell, China’s first homegrown large jetliner C919, first domestically built large cruise ship the Adora Magic City, and China’s space station lab module Mengtian, are among examples of Shanghai’s achievements in sci-tech innovation.
In 2023, Shanghai’s expenditure on research and development accounted for around 4.4 percent of the city’s gross domestic product. It also aims to host more than 26,000 high-tech enterprises and about 560 foreign-funded research and development centres by 2025.
Developing new quality productive forces does not mean neglecting or abandoning traditional industries. Shanghai’s industrial transformation and upgrading have been going on for quite some time. It has recently accelerated innovation-driven development, and promoted its manufacturing sector’s development, transformation and upgrade towards high-end, intelligent and green development.
Besides, Shanghai boasts a large number of high-level professionals. It has been making substantial efforts in attracting and retaining top-tier talents, with its three prioritised industries of integrated circuits, biomedicine, and artificial intelligence alone attracting as many as 800,000 talents. Shanghai’s integrated circuit talents account for approximately 40 percent of the national total, according to the Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality.
Apart from boosting its own tech prowess, Shanghai’s robust sci-tech progress is also conducive to strengthening the integrated industrial and technological innovation in the whole Yangtze River Delta region that also covers the provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui, one of the most vibrant, open, and innovative regions in China’s economic development. The economic aggregate of the Yangtze River Delta was 29 trillion yuan (about $4.08 trillion) last year, accounting for nearly one-quarter of the country’s total.
African Times published this article in partnership with ChinAfrica Magazine
