The plan for the Zhongguancun Science City will unveil in the first half of this year, said Zhai Lixin, a deputy to the 15th Beijing Municipal People's Congress and director of the administrative committee of Zhongguancun.
The Zhongguancun Science City will revolve around the Zhongguancun Avenue as the "main axis of innovation," build an international talent community, carry out a renovation project to lift the city's image, and promote the construction of the city as a base of operations for innovation, Zhai said.
The work report of the Beijing municipal government put forward that the Zhongguancun Science City will look to become the breeding ground and the main hub for innovation with global influence, increase capabilities of opening and attracting global innovation resources, focus on strengthening innovation factors and work hard to promote the convergence of different innovation groups.
Zhai said the Zhongguancun demonstration zone is still falling short and one of the shortcomings is its talent diversity.
"More than 35 percent of the professionals in Silicon Valley come from overseas, while foreign startup entrepreneurs in Zhongguancun numbers less than 10,000, accounting for less than 1 percent of the total," he said, adding that the deficiency in supporting facilities and services has reduced the city's pull for talent.
Zhai said the plans for the science city would be multi-faceted, taking into account its capabilities in facilitating innovation, improving the city's environment, laying the groundwork for future development.
In addition, the plans aim to build a pilot community of international talents around its main Zhongguancun Avenue, offering better workplaces, secure living quarters, and benefits such as healthcare and education for expat children.
"Although the details are still developing, what we can be sure of is that the city will provide the working and living environment up to international standards, and produce a holistic design for supporting services to attract high-end foreign talent," Zhai said.
At the same time, the Zhongguancun Avenue will be given a facelift to become the "main axis" of the Zhongguancun Science City, thus taking advantage of the proximity of Peking University and Tsinghua University and improving the surrounding environment of these prestigious institutions.
Zhongguancun has worked to clear out small electronics vendors from the area, such as the ones that used to occupy the Hailong Mansion, and plans to replace them with international startup incubators, prestigious academic organizations, and investment firms.
"We will build slow lanes and green spaces, create open public spaces in the future to mold Zhongguancun Avenue into a landmark of the Zhongguancun Science City," Zhai said.
Zhai said, as part of the plans to facilitate innovation, the Integrated Circuit Design Park and the Xiaomi Mobile Industrial Park will be put into operation this year, and the planning for the optimization of the Zhongguancun Life Science Park is in the making.
Wang Xiaolan, a deputy to the Beijing Municipal People's Congress and president of Time Group Inc., proposed building a municipality-level coordination mechanism to facilitate the development of the Zhongguancun Science City.
Guo Hong, another deputy to the Beijing Municipal People's Congress and chairman of Zhongguancun Bank, suggested strengthening the innovation of finance in scientific research and development in the building of the Zhongguancun Science City.