A projects signing and groundbreaking ceremony was held in Guangzhou Development District on Wednesday, making way for significant developments in areas such as the headquarters economy, biomedicine and new-generation information technology.

The move came as part of the district's efforts to carry out the overall development plan for the China-Singapore Guangzhou Knowledge City for 2020-35, which was approved by the State Council in August 2020.

Of the projects, 54 have begun construction with a total investment of 101.7 billion yuan ($15.76 billion), and 66 were newly signed on the day worth 113.7 billion yuan.

The projects are expected to generate about 143.3 billion yuan in annual revenue when they reach designed capacity.

Of the projects signed, 11 are involved in the biomedical industry.

One of them is the WestVac vaccine research and development and production project. A team headed by Wei Yuquan, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy at Sichuan University, will use internationally advanced technology platforms to help develop and make a variety of vaccine products.

A group of investment projects are signed with Guangzhou Development District in the capital city of Guangdong province on Wednesday. JIA ZIHAO/FOR CHINA DAILY

Guangzhou Development District is a key hub of China's biopharmaceutical industry, with more than 3,000 related companies.

Another vaccine production center in the district is being built by Guangzhou Laboratory and Guangzhou High-tech Investment Group. It is planned to cover an area of 33,000 square meters and will promote cooperation between the lab and vaccine manufacturers in the district to make breakthroughs in COVID-19 vaccine R&D.

With a planned investment of 1 billion yuan, the center will focus on nucleic acid vaccines, recombinant vaccines, virus-like particle vaccines and neutralizing antibodies. It will be capable of providing 1 billion to 1.2 billion doses annually, according to district officials.

Lonza, another biomedical company in the development district, is expanding its production lines for biological drugs and conducting clinical trials. The expansion project is scheduled to finish construction in 2022 and will support clients in clinical trials and commercialized development and production for therapeutic medicines.

Biopharmaceutical company Akeso is setting up its Asia-Pacific clinical research and operation headquarters in the district and developing a clinical R&D center and a transnational medicine center.