发展创新型经济，上海的底气从何而来？ - 2021-01-04

The plenary session of CPC Shanghai Municipal Committee held recently pointed out that it is necessary to improve the economic development pattern and accelerate efforts to strengthen and optimize the development of “five types of economy”, namely innovation economy, service economy, open economy, headquarters economy and flux economy. Among them, the innovation economy that places equal emphasis on strategic emerging industries and online new economy is a distinctive feature and significant advantage of Shanghai’s economy, a pillar of building Shanghai into a center in the domestic market and a strategic link between the domestic and international markets, and a key for Shanghai to better participate in international competition and cooperation on behalf of China. To build Shanghai into an excellent global city and a socialist modern international metropolis with global influence, the top priority is to create an innovation city.
Currently, Shanghai has formed a basic framework system for the science and technology innovation center, and ranks among the top in China in terms of the quantity and quality of innovation talents, elements, enterprises and organizations. Its contribution to scientific and technological progress has improved across the board. According to the Nature Index 2020 Science Cities published by the British journal Nature, Shanghai ranks fifth among science cities worldwide. According to the Global Scientific and Technological Innovation Centers Evaluation 2020 released by Shanghai Economic Information Center, Shanghai ranked 12th among the top 100 global cities in terms of scientific and technological innovation centers.
The reason that Shanghai is confident about the development of innovation economy mainly lies in the following three advantages.
Pay close attention to the world’s cutting-edge technologies
On one hand, Shanghai has focused on the world’s key cutting-edge technologies, taken a leading role in technological development, and solved stranglehold technical problems. It has made remarkable achievements in major scientific and technological frontiers represented by Tiangong space station, BeiDou Navigation Satellite System, Tianyan telescope, the manned deep-sea submersible Jiaolong, the quantum science satellite Mozi and C919 large airplane.
On the other, Shanghai has built a number of nationally leading and internationally competitive scientific and technological infrastructures including “one center, three batches” in particular, namely Zhangjiang Comprehensive National Science Center, a batch of R&D and transformation platforms for generic technologies, a batch of bearing areas for the Science and Technology Innovation Center and a batch of maker spaces. Zhangjiang Comprehensive National Science Center has built a world-class scientific and technological infrastructure cluster in photonics, and initially formed a group of photonics research facilities with the largest scale, most complete types and most powerful comprehensive strength together with SSRF, live cell imaging and Shenguang. A batch of new R&D institutions that represent the development direction of cutting-edge science and technology have gathered in Shanghai, such as Tsung-Dao Lee Institute, Quantum Science Center, Shanghai Qizhi Research Institute, Shanghai Shutu Blockchain Research Institute, and Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Lab, greatly enhancing Shanghai’s sustainable innovation abilities in artificial intelligence, quantum computing, blockchain, etc. The propose for Shanghai to improve and optimize the development of innovation economy is not only to achieve better development of its own, but also to participate in international competition and cooperation on behalf of China.
Take a leading role in emerging industries
A distinctive feature of Shanghai’s innovation economy is that it has basically formed a modern industrial system with modern service industry as the mainstay, strategic emerging industries as the lead, and advanced manufacturing industry as the support. Shanghai has accelerated deployments in emerging industries such as blue-sky dream, China chip, innovative medicines, intelligent manufacturing, vehicles in the future, and data port, and made remarkable achievements. For example, the large airplane C919 independently developed by COMAC headquartered in Shanghai successfully flew into the sky; Shanghai took the lead in launching a kilometer-level high temperature superconducting (HTS) power cable demonstration project in China; “Shanghai’s schemes” for integrated circuit, artificial intelligence, and biomedical industries were approved by the State. In 2019, Shanghai’s total R&D investment accounted for 4% of its GDP, and the number of patents of invention per 10,000 people was 53.5; the industrial output of strategic emerging industries in Shanghai including energy conservation and environmental protection, the new generation of information technology, biology, high-end equipment, new energy, new energy vehicles, new materials, etc. accounted for 32.4% of the city’s total industrial output above designated size. In the first half of 2020, with the COVID-19 pandemic raging across the world, amidst complex and changing domestic and international environments, the total output of Shanghai’s emerging strategic industries increased by 5.5% year on year, far outperforming its industrial output. Shanghai is making every effort to promote its digital transformation, create a highland for digital industrialization and industrial digitization across the board, and form new strategic advantages for its development in the future.
As an innovation city, Shanghai pays special attention to providing “fertile soil and abundant nutrients” for leading innovation enterprises to show their strength, and accelerate the agglomeration of innovation enterprises and institutions. For example, Shanghai had in-depth cooperation with Alibaba Group and Ant Group for three times in 2015, 2018 and 2020 respectively, focusing on the development and application of new technologies such as cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and blockchain, and aiming to expand new businesses, create new forms, and explore new models in areas such as online new economy, new digital infrastructure, fintech, cross-border business and digital life on the basis of innovation platforms such as Alibaba Shanghai R&D Center, Alibaba New Retail Center and Ant Technology Center. During the pandemic, the output of Shanghai’s artificial intelligence industry in the first half of 2020 increased by 33.3% year on year against the downward trend. Huawei Qingpu R&D Center project that kicked off in September this year focused on integrated circuits, software and information services, Internet of Things, Internet of Vehicles, industrial internet, demonstration of smart city applications, etc., striving to build a global innovation base of Huawei. Himalaya, China’s largest online audio-sharing platform that settled down in Shanghai with 600+ million users has provided employment and entrepreneurship opportunities for over tens of millions of audio content authors.
Keep the advantages of institutional innovation
With continuous efforts in institutional innovation and reform, Shanghai has established a government management system that conforms to the laws of innovation, a positive and flexible system for innovation talent development, a better innovation input system for enterprises, a market-oriented mechanism for the transfer and transformation of scientific and technological achievements, and promoted the formation of an open, innovation mechanism integrating cross-border elements etc. These measures provide guarantee for the upgrade of Shanghai’s innovation economy.
From the promulgation of Opinions on Accelerating the Construction of a Global Influential Science and Technology Innovation Center (22 Items of Science and Technology Innovation) five years ago, to the implementation of Regulations on Promoting the Construction of the Science and Technology Innovation Center in Shanghai this year, Shanghai has created a more competitive legal environment for the construction of the Science and Technology Innovation Center. Currently, the 10 pilot reform measures authorized by the State Council have basically been implemented in Shanghai. Of the 56 replicable reform measures in three batches approved by the State Council, 12 come from Shanghai’s experience, accounting for one fifth of the total.
Focusing on strengthening the protection and stimulating the vitality of market players, Shanghai is building a first-class business environment across the board. The Shanghai Municipal Implementation Plan for Comprehensively Deepening the International First-class Business Environment put forward 36 measures focusing on full coverage of “access via one website”, “one application form and a single window to issue the license”, and “separating permits from the business license”, and a market access negative list system. Shanghai will make a comprehensive review of the implementation of Regulations on Optimizing the Business Environment, combine the World Bank’s and China’s assessments of the business environment, take into account evaluations of indicators and work performance, and accelerate efforts to create “Shanghai’s sample” of business environment evaluation that reflects the needs of its innovation economy.
Author: Yin Desheng, Dean and Professor of Faculty of Economics and Management at East China Normal University