Su Ning

Institute of World Economics and Politics, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences

A city builds up its core competitiveness through long years of development and competition. Underlying the basic level of urban development, it’s a combination of the factors deciding the optimized distribution of local resources. It is characterized by three features, namely uniqueness, added-value and growth, and is very difficult to be copied and replicated. Under the external environment fraught with uncertainties, the cities across the world have to keep enhancing their core competitiveness to maintain their international influence and develop their global resource allocation capability. The second CIIE scheduled to take place from November 5th to 10th, 2019, a big international event held annually in Shanghai, has become a major platform for Shanghai to display its urban function level and service capability. As the hosting city of the CIIE, Shanghai manifests its core competitiveness in openness, innovation and regional leadership through the grand event, with its upgrade of urban function supporting and responding to a new round of opening-up strategies of China.

1. The CIIE and the Upgrade of Shanghai’s Role as The Hub and Gateway of Opening-Up

Shanghai’s role as an international hub constitutes one of its core competitiveness, which, in this new era of globalization, is reflected in Shanghai’s capacity in handling exports of goods & service, and more importantly, its capacity in supporting China’s new opening-up system and international economy coordination mechanism. By hosting the CIIE, Shanghai shows to the world that it has developed stronger international trade capacity and has become a major gateway of China’s new round of high-level opening-up. In terms of trade structure, Shanghai’s imports totaled 2,034.308bn yuan with an increase of 6.4% while its exports amounted to 1,366.685bn yuan with an increase of 4.2%. The accelerating growth in imports testifies to the improvement in the export-import structure of Shanghai and its role as a hub. Meanwhile, with the launching of the CIIE, more and more multinational corporations have settled in Shanghai and its neighboring area, thus enhancing Shanghai’s capacity in serving multinational economic subjects. Compared with the first CIIE last year, many more influential international organizations such as the United Nations Development Programme and International Trade Center will participate in the second CIIE, which demonstrates Shanghai’s competency in supporting the governing organs and mechanism of globalized and multilateral economy.

2. The CIIE and the Building of Shanghai As A Global Science and Technology Innovation Center

Innovation capacity, a pillar of the core competitiveness of Shanghai, is the driving force of its city development. The CIIE serves as a platform for displaying cutting-edge products, and a window for demonstrating its capacity in science and technology service. The CIIE has provided a major platform for Shanghai to attract hi-tech companies and to pool science & technology information flow, talent flow and capital low. Among the intended purchases totaling $57.83bn in the first CIIE, that of intelligent & top-notch equipment alone reached $16.46bn. Many latest products and technologies will be on display in the second CIIE, among them “Gemini” planer type milling machine, workbin stacking machine and antifogging film. Compared with last year, more Fortune Global 500 companies and industry leaders will make their appearance and more products and technologies will be launched in the second CIIE. The attraction and pooling of international innovation elements are a testament to the fierce determination of Shanghai to build an open innovation system and to shift from “flow-driven” to “increment-driven” with innovation as the core driving force.

3. The CIIE Enhances Shanghai’s Influence on the Neighboring Areas

The leading role of Shanghai in the Yangtze River Delta is another pillar for its core competitiveness. Nowadays, the competition among cities is, more often than not, that among urban agglomerations with one or more core cities. Under this circumstance, Shanghai should take the lead in pursuing high-quality and open development of the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration, which in turn will improve its own urban function. The second CIIE coincides with the upgrade of the Yangtze River Delta integration to a national strategy and the official release of The Outline of the Yangtze River Delta Integrated Development Planning, contributing greatly to enhancing Shanghai’s capacity in leading the coordinated development of the region. The CIIE provides a key “channel” for products, technologies and service from across the globe to enter the Yangtze River Delta via Shanghai, and enables the neighboring cities to transform from “selling across the world” to “buying across the world”. For example, Songjiang of Shanghai has established a purchasing association together with the enterprises from Jiaxing, Hangzhou, Jinhua, Suzhou, Huzhou, Xuancheng, Wuhu, Hefei, etc. to benefit from the spillover effects of the CIIE. Meanwhile, the nine cities have jointly released 30 measures to concertedly further opening-up and boost the integration development of open economy, reflecting the active role of the CIIE in bringing into play Shanghai’s leadership in the region in terms of system innovation and in facilitating the upgrade of the business environment of the Yangtze River Delta.