The Poster News APP:
As we all know, Tongxiang is a city with an advanced economy and developed industries, especially the manufacturing industry. What progress has Tongxiang made in taking the opportunity of hosting the WIC to promote internet-driven high-quality economic development? Thank you.
Qi Li:
I will answer your question. First, I'd like to thank you for your attention to the development of Tongxiang.
Indeed, as you said, Tongxiang is a city with an advanced economy and developed industries. In 2020, its GDP reached 100.3 billion yuan (about $15.57 billion). The city now ranks 25th among China's latest top 100 counties (including county-level cities). As the permanent host city of the WIC, Tongxiang is seeking more than just regular growth achieved by enterprises of traditional strength. Ever since we began successfully hosting the WIC, we have considered the best ways to ensure the event brings benefits to the region and empowers our local enterprises to grow with internet technology. This has been our top question to think about, explore and put into practice. Generally speaking, we have made progress in three aspects.
First, we have seen a faster development. The digital economy has become the fastest growing industry with the most potential in Tongxiang. In 2014, there were merely more than 300 digital economy companies in Tongxiang. By 2020, this number had increased by more than eight times to 2,443, with an average annual increase of more than 350. Meanwhile, the output value of the digital economy's core industry here was merely more than 4 billion in 2014, but by 2020 it had grown close to 16.5 billion. This indicator continued to maintain rapid growth in the first half of this year, with an increase of 59%. The industry's rapid progress can be attributed to these surging statistics. Here I can give you examples of these developments in two industries. One is the smart car industry. In Tongxiang, the entire industry chain has been covered, such as batteries, motors, electronic controls, software and hardware for smart driving, and various other means of smart vehicle production. We can proudly say that Tongxiang has achieved the most complete smart car industrial cluster among all counties and prefectures in the country. This was totally unimaginable many years ago. The second example is the intelligent computing industry. During this year's World Internet Conference, the construction of the "Light of Wuzhen" Super-computing Center will be officially completed, and the first intelligent computing industry base in Zhejiang province, "Wuzhen Computing Town," which relies on the super-computing center, has also officially started construction. We believe that in the near future, Zhejiang's strongest computing brain will definitely show its super industrial agglomeration and radiation effects.
Second, we have seen a higher-level upgrading. "Internet Plus" has given wings to Tongxiang's industrial transformation and upgrading. We focus on industrial digitization and have vigorously promoted the transformation of "Internet Plus." In recent years, we invested around tens of billions of yuan each year to implement more than 1,000 digital transformation projects and promote higher-level industrial iterative upgrades. For example, in the manufacturing sector, through the construction of industrial command-center brains, future factories, and the Industrial Internet, production efficiency has been greatly improved. I can give you a small example: in Tongxiang, there is a traditional chemical fiber manufacturing company whose factories have been in operation for 25 years. Through the in-depth application of 5G technology, its production capacity has tripled in three years, the average human labor force has been reduced by 50%, production efficiency increased by 90%, and the comprehensive energy consumption is 20% lower than the industry average. Since the beginning of this year, we have three corporate groups that have entered the ranks of Zhejiang's Future Factory list, and five projects have entered the national list of intelligent manufacturing.
Third, we have seen a stronger driving force. Innovation is increasingly becoming the strongest driving force for the high-quality development of Tongxiang's economy. To innovate, we must have a platform. Centered on building the Wuzhen Internet Innovation and Development Pilot Zone, we have built 13 industrial innovation and development platforms led by the Big Data High-tech Industrial Park and supported by the Digital Economy Town and the Smart Vision IoT Town. A large number of innovative enterprises have settled in Tongxiang. Up to now, the total number of high-tech enterprises and technological enterprises in Tongxiang has reached 1,424. Innovation is even more inseparable from talent. In recent years, Tongxiang has attracted nearly 20,000 college graduates annually and has successfully established the first batch of "Home for Academicians" in Zhejiang province, gathering 46 academicians and securing 28 projects. This year we cooperated with Tsinghua University and Yangtze Delta Region Research Institute of Tsinghua University, and invested 1.2 billion yuan to start building the Wuzhen Lab, working together to create a gravitational field and a cradle of innovation and development. Tongxiang is also increasingly becoming a top choice for all kinds of talents in entrepreneurship and innovation.
Therefore, being faster, higher, and stronger is the most direct portrayal of Tongxiang benefiting from the huge dividends of the World Internet Conference. The people of Tongxiang are in conscious pursuit of development in order to lay a more solid foundation for Tongxiang to achieve its new goal of being a leading demonstration zone leader for common prosperity. I would like to take this opportunity to invite friends of Tongxiang to visit our city. What you will see is a Tongxiang that has been transformed by the World Internet Conference, and a Tongxiang that is even more splendid under the grand vision of building a community with a shared future in cyberspace.
