Leadingtoinnovation
China’s Jiangsu Province focuses on innovation in promoting its economic development
As he exited from the suning headquarters in Nanjing, capital of east China’s Jiangsu Province, Mapundula Erasto Charles, a 32-year-old public servant of Malawi Investment and Trade Center, said his visit in the Chinese electronics giant had been an “eye-opener.”
“I am very much attracted by the advanced technologies that Suning is using which I never thought existed, such as advanced digital data and cloud computing technology,” Charles told Chinafrica.
Charles is one of the 17 students of Beijing Normal University’s international MBA program who visited Nanjing and Kunshan cities from April 10-14. Hailing from 15 countries across Asia, Africa and Latin America, the students learned more about the innovation-powered economic development of Jiangsu Province.
Bordering China’s financial center of Shanghai, Jiangsu has sought over the last few years to give top priority to innovation. This focus is bearing fruits and the province is now recognized as a hotspot of innovation, technology and entrepreneurship in the country.
Like Charles, many of the MBA students worked in various business-related government departments in their respective countries before taking leave to study in China. Charles said his trip convinced him to bring back home some of the best practices from Jiangsu Province’s unique approach to economic development. ting strong emphasis on implementing innovation-boosting measures in the country’s rapid development. In this regard, Nanjing is believed to have taken the lead.
“Innovation means developing new and high-tech industries so as to open up more growth spaces, as well as transforming traditional industries with information technology,” said Liu Liya, an offical with the Nanjing Municipal Bureau of Commerce.
To this end, the city has established clusters of technology centers, research and development centers, sales centers, logistics centers and corporate headquarters. “Nanjing’s new industries are booming, and the contribution rate of scientific and technological progress in economic growth now reaches 61 percent,” said Liu.
By early 2017, over 3,500 enterprises from more than 60 countries and regions had settled in Nanjing to share their innovative resources. The city is home to 83 academicians of Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Engineering and 80 key laboratories of provincial and higher levels, as well as 326 engineering technology research centers providing high-tech support to enterprises.