Conference sets out plans to boost economy by riding wave of science and innovation

Guangdong province will continue to push forward high-quality development with the real economy and manufacturing industries as the foundation and technological innovation as the main driver, said a senior official.

Huang Kunming, secretary of the Guangdong Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China, made the remarks at the Guangdong Provincial High-quality Development Conference on Sunday.

A major economy and manufacturing hub in South China, Guangdong has abundant resources and strengths in scientific and technological innovation, Huang said, adding that it shoulders significant missions and responsibilities in high-quality development.

The province has formed a consensus that high-quality development is fundamental for Guangdong to achieve modernization and high-quality development is essentially driven by innovation, he said.

Huang emphasized that Guangdong must seize the opportunity brought by a wave of technological revolution and cultivate new productive forces to build mutually beneficial relationships between industries and technologies. "We should regard talent as treasure and work with enterprises together."

The Guangdong Provincial High-quality Development Conference is held in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, on Sunday. SHI LEI/FOR CHINA DAILY

More efforts and support are needed to channel innovation resources into excellent companies and help them make technological breakthroughs, enhance competitiveness and advance industrial upgrading, Huang said.

Guangdong is now home to more than 18 million market entities, including some 75,000 high-tech enterprises. This year, the province plans to launch a batch of scientific research projects and advance digital transformation in 9,200 industrial enterprises above designated size — those with an annual revenue of 20 million yuan ($2.78 million) or more — according to Huang.

Guangdong Governor Wang Weizhong called on all enterprises, organizations and people in the province to become the vanguard in technological innovation.

The provincial government, as well as authorities in different regions, should create a business environment that is favorable for innovation and offer better conditions for talented people and market entities, Wang said during the conference.

He also said Guangdong hopes to deepen cooperation with the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions in key fields such as industrial technology, and join hands to develop the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area into a driving force of the country's high-quality development.

In addition to the main conference, the event included five subforums where officials, corporate leaders and representatives from technology, education and other sectors shared their insights on high-quality development.

The province's financial system should provide full-cycle financial services for startups and high-tech enterprises through venture capital, credit, insurance, leasing and others, attendees said at the "empowering industrial innovation with finance "subforum.

The concepts of financial services need to be changed, while the risk-sharing mechanism should be optimized, they added.

Action plans for five "future industries" that include emerging intelligent equipment, emerging materials and emerging electronic information were released at the forum themed on innovation-driven development strategies.

Guangdong is to establish an emerging industry system, with a focus on those expected to thrive and grow into 100-billion-yuan industries, local officials said.

Forum participants also discussed how to build an industrial sci-tech innovation center with global influence and offered their solutions for talent training and the integrated development of industries and science and technology.

Another highlight was the subforum focusing on Guangdong's "100 counties, 1,000 towns and 10,000 villages" program. Launched at the end of 2022, it aims to promote rural vitalization and foster coordinated development between urban and rural areas.

Forum attendees encouraged enterprises to join in the program and called for more financial services to counties, towns and villages.

Also, contracts for 12 projects of the program were signed at the forum, with a total investment of 11 billion yuan and donations of 172 million yuan.