By Su Yan, Liu Meng, Chen Xue, Shi Weiwei, Guangming Daily (August 14, 2020, page 01)

　　Located in the eastern part of Jiangsu Province, Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP) is a 278-square-kilometre area of land, every inch of which contains powerful energy.

　　Even with the major impact of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, SIP achieved a gross regional product of over 129 billion yuan in the first half of the year, up 2.1% year-on-year; total import and export amounted to over 305.2 billion yuan, up 4.5%; registered foreign investment and incoming foreign investment were US$2.07 billion and US$1.28 billion, up 149% and 196% respectively.

　　The beautiful report card is a pleasant surprise. Why can Suzhou Industrial Park? The answer is simple yet profound.

　　It is because of openness and innovation. As the main battleground of Suzhou's openness and innovation, the Park has always maintained a progressive stance, bravely challenged its limits and seized opportunities, ultimately implementing them to the central point of openness and innovation. This is perhaps the "code" of the park's invincibility in the complex situation, and is also the most powerful "trump card".

　　Advance layout, open innovation with a focus on quality

　　Suzhou Biomedical Industrial Park, Building C19, 3rd floor, "Ding!" The lift door opened and Yu Qiang, co-founder of CGeneTech (Suzhou, China) Co., Ltd Yu Qiang, who returned to China in 2010, is diving into the development of China's first (DPP-4 inhibitor) original drug for the treatment of diabetes, which is now in clinical phase III. "We plan to build an industrial base integrating a new drug research institute, a headquarters base and a formulation plant, and the site has already been chosen with an estimated area of 30 acres." Yu Qiang said.

　　"In 2019, the output value of the park's three emerging industries reached 203 billion yuan, and some enterprises are going to build R&D and production bases, while others are going to be listed on the science and technology innovation board, all of which have demand for land." Wang Xuejun, director of the Suzhou Industrial Park Economic Development Commission, introduced.

　　For an enterprise to have land in SIP, signing a Land Grant Contract is only the first step, and an Industrial Development Agreement is also required. Before the expiry of the 10-year concession period, the enterprise will be subject to a series of strict "examinations", and the second half of the "N-year" concession will be considered in accordance with the performance assessment of the Industrial Development Agreement, depending on the enterprise's investment intensity, time to production, average tax revenue, etc. "The total period of land use rights granted will not exceed 30 years.

　　The flexible tenure of the industrial land (10+N) listing mode not only reduces the cost of acquiring land for start-up enterprises, but also enables the government to supervise the land grant at a later stage.

　　The fact that land in the park is becoming more and more "valuable" is inseparable from the advanced layout of Suzhou Industrial Park.

　　If you want to use land, please be good first.

　　The Suzhou Industrial Park has long since launched the "three major plans" of upgrading the manufacturing industry, multiplying the service industry and leapfrogging science and technology, and the emerging industries laid out in advance have entered the harvesting period. The number of clinical approvals for new class I biological drugs in the past three years accounted for about 22% of the total in China during the same period.

　　Not satisfied with the existing achievements, the park has further increased its efforts in attracting foreign investment "head enterprises" and has achieved parallel progress in attracting and cultivating high-level industries.

　　During the Newcastle pneumonia epidemic, logistics was a roadblock for enterprises to resume work and production. The Suzhou Industrial Park organised charter flights and gave full play to the role of China-Europe Card Airlines, a private enterprise cultivated by the Park, to ease the logistics problems of the Park's enterprises. Generally speaking, the channels from Europe to China are mainly by air, sea and rail. China-Europe Card Airline opened up a "fourth channel" for passenger car transportation, from Suzhou to Germany door-to-door generally takes only 15 days, the fastest when only 10 days, cost savings of nearly 40% compared to air transport.

　　"Time and cost are the decisive factors in logistics." Tang Hu, deputy general manager of China-Europe Trucking, revealed that through a match made by Suzhou's working group to assist Xinjiang, Horgos included China-Europe trucking flights in its 21 articles on optimising the business environment and continued to optimise customs clearance and facilitation services for China-Europe Trucking.

　　During the epidemic, the taxation department of the park implemented a series of policy measures such as export tax rebate facilitation and shortage tolerance commitment system to stabilize foreign trade and promote production by all means. In the first half of this year, the taxation department of the park approved export tax refunds (exemptions) for a total of 2,318 enterprises.

　　From the impossible to the possible, Suzhou Industrial Park has broken the rules, created a "small environment" and dovetailed with a "big environment". The concept of open innovation and high-quality development is as ubiquitous as the air, and has continuously boosted the concentration of science and technology innovation.

　　Focus on problems, open innovation to strengthen the heart service

　　Roche Diagnostic Products (Suzhou) Co., Ltd. was planning to put into operation when it encountered the problem of blocking the import of biological raw materials such as bovine serum and human serum, etc. If the problem could not be solved, the company's high value-added diagnostic reagents would not be able to be transferred from Germany to Suzhou to carry out R&D and production.

　　"This matter involves many departments, relying on us to run one by one, it is long and difficult, and the relevant regulations are still blank." The relevant person in charge of Roche Suzhou said.

　　The business of the enterprise is the business of the park. The Suzhou Industrial Park Management Committee and Roche Suzhou sat down together, repeatedly communicated, understood the demands, clarified the "blockage" and the direction of efforts. After coordination, in May 2018, China and Germany signed a memorandum of understanding on the quarantine arrangements for the import of bovine serum albumin from Germany. Roche became the first company in China to be able to import bovine serum albumin from Germany for production purposes.

　　In September 2019, the General Administration of Customs replied to Nanjing Customs, allowing Roche Suzhou to import human serum products (excluding positive non-inactivated) produced by Roche Germany under the compliance with the sanitary and quarantine requirements for entry into China, laying a solid foundation for Roche Suzhou's continuous and stable production operations.

　　Since then, Roche has invested in additional tissue diagnostic and systemic reagent projects based on the establishment of the Asia Pacific Diagnostic R&D Centre in the Park.

　　The trust of enterprises comes from the Park's continuous promotion of professional services for the whole life cycle of enterprises. "In recent years, as the industrial capacity of the Park continues to rise, many enterprises have raised new topics with us. Once the enterprises raise them, we have to assist them to seek solutions together and provide solid and good services to them." Xiao Xue, Vice President of Suzhou Industrial Park Investment Promotion Bureau Ltd. said.

　　On January 9, the Park Customs launched a pilot reform of the bonded mode of the whole industrial chain of high-end manufacturing industries to further enhance the competitiveness of high-end manufacturing industries. Companies such as Suzhou Kinglong Technology and Qunze Technology became the first batch of pilot associated enterprises, and these enterprises in the industrial chain will implement overall supervision, full bonding and convenient flow, and share the policy dividends.

　　Zhou Mingchen, deputy director of Suzhou Industrial Park Customs, revealed that this reform will soon add a new generation of display technology industry chain led by AUO.

　　Some experts have commented that innovations such as the reform of the bonded model for the whole industrial chain of high-end manufacturing can best solve the problem of foreign enterprises taking root, as this is the "difficult" and "painful" point for their survival and development.

　　"Institutionalized innovation and differentiated exploration must revolve around industry." Sun Yangcheng, member of the Party Working Committee and deputy director of the Administrative Committee of Suzhou Industrial Park, said.

　　With the help of the "customs assistance financing" launched by the Customs and the Comprehensive Coordination Bureau of the Free Trade Zone, Conner Machinery Manufacturing (Suzhou) Co., Ltd. quickly completed the pure credit loan process and was approved for tens of millions of yuan, with an actual interest rate nearly 70% lower than the market level. Ltd. successfully imported unregistered medical devices from abroad and upgraded its cardiac external automatic defibrillator.

　　Starting from the actual industrial development, Suzhou Industrial Park has formed the optimal industrial ecology and the most competitive policy conditions in some key industries and niche areas in a small cut.

　　Li Xin, Director of Quality Regulations of Philips Healthcare (Suzhou) Co., Ltd, said that Philips' annual average growth in SIP is over 14%, which is unimaginable in foreign markets. As a result, Philips' capital, talent and management mandates are being tilted and concentrated towards Philips China. Royal Philips Netherlands CEO Marriott has said, "China is the second home of Philips".

　　In the first half of this year, Suzhou Industrial Park added 117 foreign investment projects, with strategic emerging industry projects accounting for about 75% of the total. The confidence of incoming enterprises has increased with the amount of heart in the park.

　　Be the first, open innovation based on spiritual power

　　The "Park Experience", which has been condensed since the 1990s, together with the "Zhangjiagang Spirit" and "Kunshan Road", has formed the "Three Treasures" of Suzhou's entrepreneurship. The "Three Great Treasures", the core connotation of which is learning from, innovation, integration and win-win situation.

　　The Park is a "testing ground" for reform and opening up in China, and the people of the Park have always retained in their DNA a sense of urgency to "be the first" and a sense of mission to "explore the road with innovation".

　　In order to explore the formation of a two-way opening pattern of "bringing in" and "going out" at a high level, the park launched in December 2015 the construction of the country's first "national overseas investment service demonstration platform". "In April 2019, the "Yangtze River Delta Offshore Investment Promotion Center" was established to provide integrated and professional services for "going out" enterprises nationwide.

　　Affected by the epidemic, the park guided enterprises to accelerate the diversified market layout, giving priority to strengthening economic and trade cooperation in Japan, South Korea and countries along the "Belt and Road" to open up foreign trade markets.

　　From January to June, the Yangtze River Delta Overseas Investment Promotion Centre completed 27 "going out" projects, assisting enterprises to complete overseas investments of RMB 1.03 billion. Since the establishment of the offshore investment service demonstration platform, 309 Chinese enterprises have been promoted to invest in 53 countries, with a total agreed investment amount of 10.4 billion yuan, of which 148 enterprises have invested in 179 projects in 22 countries and regions along the "Belt and Road".

　　The park insists on independent innovation in an open environment, and plans a new path of innovation-driven development in depth. In June this year, the park launched the construction of the Gusu Laboratory for Materials Science with a total investment of RMB 20 billion, and started the preparation of the 14th Five-Year Plan for the third-generation semiconductor industry, aiming to keep pace with the international community in terms of the construction of talent teams and innovation platforms, and to partially surpass them. Accelerate the construction of an independent and controllable modern industrial system from design and development to production and manufacturing.

　　In the open pattern, the Park's ability to participate in international competition has continued to grow. Since the implementation of the new listing regulations of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, half of the mainland biopharmaceutical companies listed in Hong Kong have come from SIP; the National Nanotechnology Council of the United States has listed the Park as one of the eight internationally representative industrial regions in the global nano field.

　　The support of talents is the inexhaustible impetus for the open development of the Park.

　　Eight years ago, Tian Xusheng, who graduated with a master's degree, joined Shengshi Tyco Biopharmaceutical Company. In the past eight years, he has been working in his original unit and has grown into the backbone of the company. "I have never thought of leaving the city." Tian Xusheng said.

　　The charm of the park is not only the many "firsts" created in the economic field, but also the platform and opportunities provided for all kinds of talents to work and start their own business.

　　Looking to the future, the park will use greater openness to win new space for development, to build an international, open innovation system, a preferred place for high-end talent to start their own businesses, and a source of advanced international technological innovation, and to take the initiative to carry the banner of "rebuilding a new park".

　　(Our reporter Su Yan Liu Meng Chen Xue Shi Weiwei)