Shanghai spearheads sci-tech innovation development across Yangtze River Delta

Shanghai, which is on a mission to turn out to be a world sci-tech hub, has actively taken the lead in energizing innovation across the Yangtze River Delta, producing highly effective momentum for China’s high-quality financial development.

During an inspection tour in Shanghai on April 29, Xi Jinping, normal secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, Chinese president and chairman of the Central Military Commission, careworn that Shanghai shoulders the historic mission of constructing a global heart for scientific and technological innovation. He urged the municipality to actively seize alternatives, keep aligned with nationwide methods, repeatedly strengthen its capability for authentic innovation in science and expertise, additional improve its main position in high-end industries, and speed up the development of a globally influential sci-tech innovation hub.

Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in 2012, Shanghai has actively performed its main position as a powerhouse for scientific and technological innovation, driving the continual enhancement of the Yangtze River Delta’s capability as a supply for innovation.

The Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility (SSRF), positioned in Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park, has hosted greater than 20,000 analysis initiatives since its 2009 debut. In the primary 11 months of this yr alone, almost half of its customers hailed from the Yangtze River Delta, showcasing its pivotal position within the area’s innovation panorama. As early as 2007, Xi, then secretary of the Shanghai Municipal Committee of the CPC, paid excessive consideration to national-level sci-tech innovation initiatives just like the SSRF. He referred to as for Shanghai to align with nationwide methods and shoulder the accountability of constructing an innovation-driven nation.

“At that time, our primary focus was on successfully completing the (SSFR) project, with attention centered on the project itself. However, Comrade Xi Jinping proposed using projects like the SSRF as a vehicle to better focus on and serve national strategies. This instruction reflects [his] profound strategic foresight,” mentioned Zhao Zhentang, an academician on the Chinese Academy of Engineering, then deputy head of the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Since the CPC’s 18th National Congress, Xi has made a number of visits to Shanghai. In May 2014, he set a brand new mandate for the town to “accelerate its march toward becoming a sci-tech innovation hub with global influence,” upgrading Shanghai’s strategic positioning from the unique “four centers” — financial, monetary, commerce, and transport — to the “five centers,” with the addition of a world technology-innovation hub.

Since the built-in development of the Yangtze River Delta was elevated to a nationwide technique in 2018, Xi has visited the area’s most dynamic innovation areas and has had face-to-face communications with sci-tech employees across the three provinces of Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Anhui, in addition to Shanghai. He explicitly identified that Shanghai and your entire delta area shouldn’t solely present high quality merchandise but in addition function a supply of high-level applied sciences to assist China’s high-quality development.

He urged the area to turn out to be a supply of sci-tech innovation by integrating sci-tech innovation forces and advantageous assets across areas and departments, calling for a coordinated strategy that mixes the main metropolis’s driver position with every locality’s personal strengths.

“This series of important instructions clearly outlines Shanghai’s mission: the city must not only strengthen its own innovation engine, but also play a leading role by radiating its advantage as sources of innovation across the Yangtze River Delta, thereby serving the broader national high-quality development. This fully embodies the general secretary’s profound strategic vision in positioning Shanghai’s development within the national overall framework and global competition,” mentioned Liu Qing, director of the National Innovation Center par Excellence (NICE). Today, Shanghai’s Zhangjiang High-Tech Park averages one listed firm per sq. kilometer. Half of the worldwide high 20 pharmaceutical corporations have established open innovation facilities within the high-tech park, and the park hosts greater than 40 p.c of China’s high 100 pharmaceutical trade corporations. Shanghai presently has 20 main scientific and technological infrastructure initiatives in operation, below development, or deliberate.

In the primary half of this yr, one out of each three papers printed in high worldwide journals nationwide was from Shanghai. The metropolis is now dwelling to greater than 25,000 high-tech companies, with a mean of 320 new ones bobbing up every day. The three main industries of built-in circuits, biomedicine, and synthetic intelligence have employed over 800,000 abilities.

The G60 science and expertise innovation hall, pioneered by Shanghai’s Songjiang District, has now introduced collectively one-seventh of China’s high-tech enterprises and over one-fifth of the businesses listed on China’s Nasdaq-style Science and Technology Innovation Board STAR Market.

Centered on the Large Aircraft Industrial Park within the Shanghai Lingang Special Area, a 400-kilometer radius — reachable inside three hours by high-speed rail — encompasses greater than one-third of the plane meeting suppliers.

With Shanghai taking the lead and dealing in live performance with its neighboring provinces, the Yangtze River Delta is forging forward with mixed power in scientific and technological innovation. A complete of 24 Yangtze River Delta innovation consortia have been established on a pilot foundation. The two complete nationwide science facilities in Shanghai and Hefei City of Anhui Province are actively advancing their cooperation and co-construction. A complete of 56,000 units of large-scale scientific devices are being shared across the area.

Furthermore, NICE has established strategic partnerships with over 200 home and international universities and analysis institutes, and arrange joint innovation facilities with almost 600 main corporations.

Consequently, science and technological innovation within the Yangtze River Delta continues to succeed in new heights. In the Top 100 Innovation Clusters of the “Global Innovation Index 2025” launched by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the Shanghai-Suzhou cluster ranked sixth, Hangzhou thirteenth, Nanjing fifteenth, and Hefei thirty ninth.

The recently-concluded Central Economic Work Conference emphasised the development of a global technological innovation heart in Shanghai and the Yangtze River Delta, representing a major strategic resolution geared toward enhancing the worldwide affect and competitiveness of China’s worldwide science and technological innovation hubs.

Additionally, the Yangtze River Delta area has adopted its first coordinated legislative framework for science and expertise innovation, which got here into impact in September, marking regional sci-tech collaboration elevated from coverage coordination to a brand new stage of institutionalization and rule of legislation.

“We will firmly bear in mind General Secretary Xi Jinping’s earnest instructions, join hands with Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Anhui to build a world-class hub as sources of innovation, and focus on coordinated scientific and technological strategies, aligned innovation policies and shared resources. We will strive to deepen the integration of scientific and technological innovation with industrial innovation, accelerate the construction of the Shanghai (Yangtze River Delta) International Science and Technology Innovation Center, and establish a key strategic pillar for building China into a strong nation in science and technology,” mentioned Luo Dajin, director of the Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality.

A landmark passenger route linking China’s southern island province of Hainan with Europe commenced operation on Sunday, marking the Hainan Free Trade Port’s first operational air service below the “seventh-freedom traffic right.”

Flight DV481, operated by Kazakhstan’s SCAT Airlines, left Sanya Phoenix International Airport on Sunday morning for Prague, the Czech Republic. The inaugural return flight, DV482, arrived in Sanya on Monday, with 115 Czech passengers efficiently getting into China.

Seventh-freedom rights enable an airline to hold passengers or cargo solely between two international international locations with none connection to the airline’s dwelling nation.

The route is operated by SCAT Airlines utilizing a Boeing 737 MAX 9, with one round-trip flight scheduled per week.