Sino-German Cooperation
Taicang, which has long been regarded as a sample of comprehensive development of county economy, is a model of getting out of the characteristic road of high-quality development of small and medium-sized cities.
This county-level city has a resident population of only 830,000, but its economic strength has long been ranked among the top ten of the top 100 counties (cities) in China, and its GDP (gross domestic product) per capita in 2021 is as high as 189,000 yuan; while having strong economic strength, Taicang has been ranked the top of the list of China's most happy cities at the county level for six consecutive years, and has the reputation of "city in the field, garden in the city "It is a national model city for ecological civilization construction.
Taicang has a complete range of industrial categories, with high-end equipment, advanced materials and other 100-billion-grade industrial clusters. It is the famous "hometown of German enterprises" and has been deeply engaged in cooperation with Germany for 30 years, with more than 450 German enterprises, including more than 50 world "invisible champion" enterprises. Taicang is also the only county-level city in Jiangsu Province that is both along the river and near Shanghai, and is the "bridgehead" to Shanghai, with the only inland river port in China that enjoys the treatment of seaport - Taicang Port.
Strong comprehensive strength of Taicang manufacturing industry
The development course of Taicang manufacturing industry can be regarded as the epitome of Suzhou manufacturing industry; in 1980s, the township enterprises of textile, electronic, mechanical and chemical industries started to "blossom" in Taicang; in 1990s, Taicang was abolished as a county and established as a city, and the development strategy of "connecting to Shanghai, strengthening the city with port, and developing the city with science and education" was put forward. The development strategy of "connecting with Shanghai, strengthening the city with port, and developing the city with science and education" was put forward, and the industrial investment increased greatly and many industries transferred from Shanghai were undertaken.
In the first decade of the 21st century, Taicang's export-oriented economy developed rapidly and the private economy rose rapidly, and the added value of secondary industry in the gross regional product exceeded 60% for the first time in 2004, reaching 60.41%. In the second decade, Taicang actively cultivates advanced manufacturing industries and strategic emerging industries around the main line of accelerating the transformation of economic development mode, and precision machinery, new materials, biomedicine and other industries gradually develop and grow. The total output value of regulated industries in 2011, 2016 and 2021 is 174.4 billion yuan, 204 billion yuan and 294.3 billion yuan respectively, and the proportion of emerging industries grows from 40.2% in 2011 to 57.5% in 2021.
The table shows the comparison of economic data of the top ten cities in China's top 100 county economies in 2022 released by Sadie, among which Taicang is in seventh place of the list. Compared with other cities, Taicang has the smallest land area and a very small resident population, so Taicang's economic development is to some extent constrained by land resources and population size, and the overall scale of the industry is small, but the per capita strength is not bad.
In the field of manufacturing industry, Taicang has two 100 billion leading industries, which are high-end equipment and advanced materials.
The high-end equipment industry includes high-precision CNC machine tools, marine engineering equipment, automotive core parts and other special segments, 404 enterprises above the scale of 2021 to achieve an output value of 116.397 billion yuan, an increase of 23.4%, accounting for 39.6% of the city's scale of the industry. Among them, the core automotive parts to achieve an output value of 58.063 billion yuan, representing enterprises such as Schaeffler, Brose, and BorgWarner.
The advanced materials industry mainly has special petrochemical new materials, special fine chemical materials, special differentiated functional fibers, polymer materials and other segments. 334 enterprises above the scale in 2021 achieved an output value of 94.504 billion yuan, up 16.4% year-on-year, accounting for 32.1% of the city's scale industry. Taicang Port Development Zone has the largest advanced lubricant production base in Asia, where the world's top three lubricant production giants Exxon Mobil, CNPC Lubricants and BP have set up factories.
The aerospace industry and biomedical industry are the focus of Taicang's cultivation, and the scale of both industries will exceed 50 billion yuan by 2025. Although Taicang's aerospace industry started late, it is developing rapidly. Currently, Taicang has more than 100 supporting enterprises in the industry chain, such as aviation parts construction equipment, special equipment and components, and new materials. The scale occupies one-third of Suzhou. 19 enterprises above the scale achieved an output value of 8.239 billion yuan in 2021, up 29.2% year-on-year. Among them, the vortex jet 500 kg engine independently developed by Point Stone Aviation has filled the domestic blank of supersonic target aircraft power system.
The biomedical industry is the "No.1 industry" in Suzhou. Taicang biomedical industry has gathered more than 300 biomedical enterprises with annual revenue of more than 20 billion yuan, mainly involving chemical raw materials and chemical products manufacturing, pharmaceutical manufacturing, medical devices, pharmaceutical service outsourcing and other sectors. Among them, Zhaoyan, the largest drug non-clinical evaluation organization in China, has served more than 1,500 pharmaceutical R&D enterprises at home and abroad; Yirui Imaging's X-ray non-crystal detector is the leading technology in China and has the first market share in China and the third in the world.
The "Town of German Enterprises" was born from the "bottom-up
In 1993, Taicang was abolished as a county and established as a city. It was also in this year that the first German-invested enterprise, the spring manufacturer KERN-LIEBERS, settled in Taicang. This is an old German family enterprise born in 1888, which is the "invisible champion" in the spring industry and its products are widely used in various fields such as automobile, construction, machinery and medical treatment.
From 5 employees and 5 million RMB turnover when it first settled in Taicang to more than 1,000 employees and 1.2 billion RMB turnover today, KERN-LIEBERS (Taicang) Co., Ltd. has not only become the top-ranking subsidiary of the group - with a global sales volume of 25% - but also a benchmark enterprise in Taicang and a bridge to German companies. The company has become a benchmark company in Taicang and a bridge to German companies.
Over the past 30 years, more and more German companies have settled here. On the one hand, Taicang is close to Shanghai and cooperates with Shanghai in transportation, industry, scientific research and other fields, which attracts many German enterprises to gather here; on the other hand, Taicang has been the leader of business environment in Jiangsu Province, such as the first national model of "double letter and three namely" for the transfer of state-owned land use right, and the proposed normalization of business start-up. For example, Taicang is the first one in China to create the "double letter and three namely" model for the transfer of state-owned land use rights, and to propose the normalization of enterprise start-up with "seven in one" and "0.5 days and 0 cost", and is committed to promoting the rule of law in the business environment, and "not to disturb anything and to respond to requests".
Taicang's cooperation with Germany in the past 30 years is different from the top-down project-driven mode chosen by many cities, which is market-driven and promoted from the bottom-up. The excellent geographical location and open business environment have made Taicang more and more famous in Germany and attracted many German enterprises to come here, not only many large German enterprises have set up production and service departments here, but also more small and medium-sized projects have settled here. Taicang people describe this development mode as "raising German-funded enterprises", and many German-funded enterprises are often just a small team when they first settle in Taicang, and then slowly expand the scale. According to the research, more than 90% of the German enterprises settled in Taicang in the early stage have completed the increase of capital and expansion of production.
At present, Taicang has more than 450 German enterprises, including more than 50 world "invisible champions", involving precision machine tools, automotive core components, new materials, biomedicine, aerospace and many other fields. Among them, six of the top ten German machine tool enterprises are located in Taicang, and eight of the top twenty family enterprises have invested in Taicang. Taicang has built the first Sino-German enterprise cooperation base in China, the first "German Center" built in a county-level city, and more than ten national firsts and uniquenesses of cooperation with Germany.
About 3000 Germans are working and living in Taicang. German elements" such as Oktoberfest, German restaurants, Sino-German Friendship Kindergarten, etc. are getting richer and richer, and the German style street of Maritime Tyrottenberg will be opened soon, equipped with special businesses such as German Maritim Hotel and German products exhibition and trading center, etc. Since 2008, "Taicang Day Since 2008, "Taicang Day" has been held in Germany every year, including Bavaria, Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia and Hesse.
German enterprises are striving for excellence and innovation, and many of them have developed into "invisible champions" in the world after years of precipitation. More than 600 local enterprises in Taicang have cooperated with German enterprises in the fields of industrial support, technology research and development, intelligent manufacturing, standard setting, talent training and capital association.
Through absorbing talents, gathering capital, absorbing technology and extending industrial chain, Taicang manufacturing industry grows, transforms and metamorphoses in the cooperation with German enterprises, carrying forward the craftsmanship spirit of concentration, persistence and innovation, and jointly building a solid and strong foundation of precision manufacturing industry.
The carbon sliding plate products developed by Dongnanjia and Germany Schunk Group are used in China's high-speed railway; Conemax cooperates with German R&D team to fill the core technology gap of mechanical seal parts for low-temperature pumps in China; one of the initiators of the concept of "Industry 4.0", TongFast, exports intelligent sheet metal production management system and flexible sheet metal processing line to Taicang enterprises to help them transform. The company, one of the initiators of the "Industry 4.0" concept, exported intelligent sheet metal production management systems and flexible sheet metal processing lines to Taicang enterprises to help them transform.
The introduction of dual system education has also greatly promoted the in-depth development of Sino-German cooperation in Taicang, providing important talent support for the gathering and growth of German-invested enterprises and the transformation and upgrading of local enterprises. 2001, Taicang established the first dual system professional worker training center synchronized with German vocational education in China, and precisely cultivated manufacturing talents through the cooperation between schools and enterprises. Since then, Taicang has set up more than ten dual education cooperation projects, including student education, qualification certification, technical talents and management talents and expert talents training, such as the first senior vocational talents training project set up by Schaeffler and Suzhou Jianxiong Vocational and Technical College in 2006 and the first "Sino-German Dual System Undergraduate Project" jointly set up by four institutions in 2017. "etc.
Over the past 20 years, with the introduction, digestion and localized development of dual system in Taicang, a multi-level talent training system covering secondary school, college and bachelor's degree has been gradually formed, and more than 10,000 senior management talents and professional and technical talents have been trained. 2020, Taicang released the first national standardized achievement of Sino-German vocational education cooperation, "Guide to Cultivating Talents in Dual System Vocational Education". For example, the KERN-LIEBERS Taicang factory mentioned in the previous article has more than 100 employees who graduated from the dual system
Taicang accelerates the pace of integration into Shanghai
Taicang is bordered by Yangtze River to the east, Baoshan District and Jiading District of Shanghai to the south, Changshu to the northwest, and Kunshan to the southwest. From Taicang, the distance to Suzhou city center is about 80 kilometers, and to Shanghai city center is more than 50 kilometers, both of which take about 70 minutes by car.
In recent years, with the accelerated construction of "public-rail-water" transportation network, the pace of Taicang's connection to Shanghai has pressed the "fast-forward button".
Yue Lu Road and Jiading Chengbei Road are fully connected, and the broken road of Yue Lu Road, which is directly connected to Shanghai Jiading Chengbei Road, is opened; Shanghai-Suzhou-Tongguan Railway is opened and operated, and it only takes 26 minutes to reach the core area of Shanghai directly from Taicang; the construction of North Yanjiang High-speed Railway is started, and Taicang Station will be expanded, and the "5+1" rail transportation system is gradually improved; Taicang Port and Shanghai-Taicang customs clearance integration between Taicang Port and Shanghai Yangshan Port, and opening of special railroad line for port clearance......
The deepening of transportation interconnection makes more and more people commute across the city between the two places, and also makes the integration of the livelihood of the two places closer and closer. Nowadays, you only need to bring a Shanghai transportation card to take public transportation in Taicang; Taicang's insured residents can go to Shanghai for medical treatment without filing a medical insurance card directly.
With the deepening cooperation between the two places, the industrial link between Taicang and Shanghai is also accelerating. 2021, Taicang introduced 259 projects in Shanghai with a total investment of 22.98 billion yuan, an increase of 124.3% year-on-year.
In terms of industrial synergy, Taicang promotes specialized division of labor and collaboration by virtue of its own manufacturing advantages. In the field of auto parts, the products of Taicang enterprises cover all the seven systems of auto parts subdivision formulated by the National Bureau of Statistics, and many enterprises are the only component suppliers in China. According to the research, 18 of the world's top 40 auto parts enterprises are developing in Taicang, and collaborating with Shanghai Volkswagen, Tesla and other vehicle enterprises for supporting. In the field of aerospace, Taicang seizes the opportunity of Shanghai's large aircraft industry development, based on the precision manufacturing foundation of 30 years of deep cultivation of Sino-German cooperation, relying on the R&D advantages of Northwestern Polytechnic University in the field of "three aviation", focusing on core equipment, parts, new materials, drones and other directions, focusing on promoting the civil drone R&D center, civil aviation testing, micro The construction of projects such as Fu Fu Intelligence. For example, Taicang has promoted 18 German enterprises to enter the intentional supporting field and cooperative enterprise pool of China Commercial Aircraft, and Schaeffler aviation bearings have been listed in the supplier list of Commercial Aircraft.
In addition, in terms of financial capital, Taicang takes the initiative to participate in the linkage development of Shanghai financial center and science and technology innovation center, guides high growth enterprises such as Ruigao, Zhanxin and Huaying to be listed on the science and technology innovation board, and gives full play to the role of 200 million yuan science and technology innovation fund and Yangtze River Delta industrial upgrading equity investment fund. In terms of science and technology innovation, Taicang actively undertakes Shanghai innovation resources, establishes innovation alliance with famous universities and institutes, and invites Shanghai institutes such as Shanghai Institute of Silicate of Chinese Academy of Sciences and Shanghai Institute of Technology Physics of Chinese Academy of Sciences to join. According to statistics, by the end of the 13th Five-Year Plan period, about 70% of Taicang's enterprises will cooperate with Shanghai universities and institutes in production, learning and research.