In August 1986, Minhang Economic and Technological Development Zone was ratified to be the economic and technological development zone of the state level by the State Council. It is one of the earliest development zones of state level in Shanghai and even China. Located in the riverside of Huangpu River in the southwest of Shanghai, Minhang Economic and Technological Development Zone is the smallest industrial development zone of state level in terms of size, with total area of 3.5 sq.km. In terms of development mode, Minhang Economic and Technological Development Zone utilizes foreign investment to achieve development, and conducts management by the means of enterprise method, thereby exploring a way to build and manage the development zone by virtue of enterprise method. The development zone is in the charge of Shanghai Minhang United Development Co., Ltd in terms of development, operation and management.
In 20 years of development, Minhang Economic and Technological Development zone has played an active role in the reform and opening-up: as the experimental and demonstrative zone for the reform and opening-up, providing experience for absorbing more foreign investment, and introducing advanced technology, equipment and management method; by virtue of the flexible management method and favorable investment environment, absorbing a large amount of foreign investment and making itself the window and driving force for the external economy and trade development. In the meanwhile, the development zone has actively exerted the advantage of the development zone of the state level and made some progresses in improving the sustainable economic development. By the end of 2003, Minhang Economic and Technological Development Zone has accumulatively introduced 158 projects from 18 countries and regions, with contract-involved investment totaling US$2.316 billion and average investment per project exceeding US$14 million. The accumulated industry sale volume amounts to RMB168.711 billion. The achieved benefit is RMB18.267 billion. The actually paid taxes (inclusive of tariff) totals RMB20.751 billion. The foreign exchange income is US$8.144 billion. With the effort of 18 years, the sum of RMB1 billion has been invested in the infrastructure in Minhang Economic and Technological Development Zone. The accumulatively paid tax is twenty-fold of the original investment used in establishing Minhang Economic and Technological Development zone, that is the value of 20 Minhang Economic and Technological Development Zones is created from the establishment of one Minhang Economic and Technological Development Zone.
The main economic indicators of the development zone realized the growth rate of over 15% in 2003, breaking the historic record, after maintaining the growth rate of two digits for several years. In 2003, the development zone achieved sale revenue of RMB23.067 billion, with a year-to-year increase of 16.33%; benefit of RMB2.814 billion, with a year-to-year increase of 38.37%; and tax of RMB2.642 billion, with a year-to-year increase of 21.19%. Comprehensively speaking, the development zone gains development advantage from high quality, high efficient, standard and intensive operation.
1. Highlight benefit from land and adhere to the high quality operation
With regard to merchant invitation and investment, Minhang Economic and Technological Development Zone adheres to the “three main directions”, i.e. industry projects, foreign invested enterprises and export-oriented and technology advanced enterprises, seriously controls the quality of the enterprises in the zone, and introduces enterprises that have high technology level, favorable product market future, promising project and strong development potential. Among the foreign-invested enterprises in the zone, there are over 40 world-renowned multinational companies and “world top 500” enterprises (in which, 33 from “top 500”).
Among the industrial development zones of the state level, Minhang Economic and Technological Development Zone with the smallest occupation area, has relatively high output per land unit. Calculated by the industrial use rate – 62.5% in 2003, the sales revenue exceeded RMB10.5 billion/km2, the benefit is close to RMB1.3 billion/km2, the paid tax exceeds RMB1.2 billion/km2, the foreign exchange income is close to US$0.4 billion/km2, and the accumulatively absorbed investment is close to BMR 1.1 billion/km2; and the per capita productivity exceeds RMB 0.74 million.
2. Adhere to land use regulation and engage in intensive operation
Considering the limited land resource in Minhang development zone, we highlight the intensive use of land resource. In the beginning of the construction of the development zone, the occupation area of 2.13 sq.km was divided into area A, B and C according to the requirement of separate and rolling development upon the approval of the government of Shanghai municipality. Besides the foregoing merchant invitation function, the foregoing practice realizes the reasonable use of land and relative centralization of capital to avoid unnecessary capital occupation, and prevents from the water system destroy and land waste for insufficient capital and projects. In terms of land use, the development zone strictly solves the conflict in zone appearance, forestation, enterprise requirement, reasonable save, and effective land resource use according to the approved scheme requirement. In addition, the development zone highlights and guides the industry concentration and industry chain formation in the introduction of projects. Currently, Minhang development zone has created three leading industries, inclusive of electromechanical industry represented by metro transportation and power station equipment, bio-medical industry represented by blood preparation and medicine and the light industry represented by food and beverage.
3. Improve land intensive cultivation consciousness, and optimize industry structure
Currently, there is few land resource for merchant invitation left in Minhang development zone. In order to improve the output benefit of the available land in Minhang development zone, improving land use efficiency, adjusting industry structure, and optimizing the project quality are the necessary measures, besides fully using the land in the development zone.
The companies with high technology content, good production and operation condition and powerful strength in Minhang development zone think highly of the favorable investment environment, continuously increase capital input and enlarge the enterprise investment scale; the enterprises with low technology content and climbing labor cost move out of the zone or put an end to operation in the fierce market competition. The foregoing condition results in the urgent demand of industrial structure adjustment and optimization. For example, Minhang United Development Co., Ltd moved 5 neighboring enterprises, because Fuji Xerox Corporation enlarged the project scale based on its original site. Through movement, replacement and adjustment concerning the land, the industrial structure is optimized; and the investment amount and output benefit of the unit land duplicate after the land adjustment.
In addition, Minhang Development zone has obtained ISO14001 Environmental Management System Certification in light of the target of building beautiful and clean industrial garden characterized by blue sky, green land, clean water and unblocked transportation and the requirement to improve investment environment.
