As the world's streaming giant Roku settled in TusPark Cambridge two months ago, the occupancy rate of this Chinese-British science park reached 100%. TusPark Cambridge was jointly built by Trinity College Cambridge and TUS Holdings. In just two years after its completion, the science park has drawn innovative forces in life sciences, new materials, semiconductors and other fields.
Beijing is accelerating its integration into the global network and building an innovation and cooperation hub under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The Action Plan of Beijing Municipality on Promoting the High-Quality BRI Development (2021-2025) was officially released recently. It includes a list of 89 tasks for the next five years. Beijing will focus on building a Silk Road of innovation, a digital Silk Road, a green Silk Road, and a Silk Road for health; Beijing will establish functional platforms for international exchanges, sci-tech cooperation, economic and trade investment, people-to-people exchanges and comprehensive services. It will strive to achieve higher-level cooperation, better investment returns, higher supply quality and development resilience, and become a model for advancing high-standard BRI cooperation.
Facilitate More Than 7,000 International Technology Transfers
Apart from TusPark Cambridge, a number of science parks and innovation bases originating from Beijing, such as the China-Israel Innovation Center, have set up presence overseas. They have attracted innovation institutions in various fields including Industry 4.0 and life sciences and served the incubation and market expansion of local innovative entities.
Beijing is one of the most innovative cities in the world with top technology resources. Its abundant resources and innovation vitality have spread from Beijing to BRI partners.
Since the 13th Five-Year Plan was launched, Beijing has cooperated with Italy, Russia, Cuba and Austria in building four joint laboratories in the fields of advanced manufacturing, mathematics and biomedicine. These laboratories have been designated by the state as the BRI joint laboratories. Beijing established a BRI technology transfer network and facilitated more than 7,000 international technology transfers. The contracted amount exceeded 100 billion yuan; It implemented the "Cirrus Program", which has helped more than 1,200 international students in innovation and starting businesses.
"Looking forward, Beijing will continue to implement its innovation-driven development strategy, improve its multilevel innovation cooperation system, and build key nodes for the BRI technology innovation network," said a relevant official from the Beijing Municipal Commission of Development and Reform. It is stipulated in the Five-Year Action Plan that Beijing will continue to support the BRI joint laboratories, deepen the cooperation on developing and sharing international science parks, and build Huairou Science City into an important platform for international scientists to carry out joint research. Beijing will deepen the cooperation with partner countries on science parks and support innovative enterprises and R&D institutions of BRI partner countries in locating regional headquarters and R&D centers in Zhongguancun Science Park. Beijing will support the building of two-way open platforms such as the Cambridge Innovation Cooperation Center, the Helsinki Innovation Center and the China-Japan Innovation Cooperation Demonstration Zone.
(Huairou Science City)
As for promoting technology transfer and achievement commercialization, Beijing will make effective use of resources and channels from social organizations such as the Zhongguancun Federation of Social Organizations and the Overseas Student Pioneer Park, support innovative entities in setting up innovation platforms such as R&D centers, innovation centers, and overseas incubators in BRI participating countries, and promote the industrial matchup and research findings commercialization with the BRI partner countries.
Build "RCEP+" Pilot Demonstration Zone
During the "13th Five-Year Plan" period, the actualized foreign investment in Beijing reached 83 billion US dollars, accounting for over 40% of the city's total foreign capital utilization since the reform and opening up. The accumulated non-financial outbound direct investment reached 41.2 billion US dollars and the investment stock doubled compared with the end of 2015.
Beijing is the only integrated demonstration zone for further opening up the service industry in China, and it is also the only city with two pilot free trade zones. The implementation of various new measures, including the official launch of Beijing Stock Exchange and the building of digital trade demonstration zone at a faster pace, will inject new momentum into Beijing's high-level opening-up.
"Beijing will align itself with international trade rules, create an open, transparent, and predictable world-class business environment, and achieve a higher-level opening-up," said the relevant person in charge. Beijing will build a "Digital Silk Road" economic cooperation pilot zone, and promote in-depth cooperation with partner countries in new infrastructure, big data, cloud computing, smart city, e-commerce, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and other fields. It will encourage digital retail and digital education, among others to expand applications in partner countries and promote the sustainable development of smart logistics, mobile payment and other service industries. It will endeavor to develop "Silk Road E-commerce" and use various channels to support enterprises in jointly building and sharing overseas warehouses. It will support financial institutions in establishing Belt and Road green funds through market-oriented methods.
Beijing will also enhance two-way investment and international cooperation on production capacity, pilot institutional innovations in trade and investment facilitation, e-commerce, cross-border service trade and intellectual property protection, and build an "RCEP+" pilot demonstration zone.
Behind the booming economic and trade exchanges is a better comprehensive service system. According to the Plan, Beijing will build a "1+N" international commercial law service platform, establish the Beijing International Commercial Court, explore the way to build BRI legal service clusters, and accelerate the building of the Beijing International Arbitration Center. Beijing will encourage commercial banks and other financial institutions to provide diversified and convenient cross-border financial services to enterprises. It will make overseas investment more convenient and enable "service access via one website" on a larger scale.
Build BRI Meeting Rooms, Expand International Circle of Friendship
Beijing has carried out anti-Covid cooperation with 78 cities in 40 countries, established more than 50 overseas enterprise service centers, private economic development service bases, and the BRI two-way investment service platforms, and signed friendly agreements with more than 200 overseas business associations.... As the center for international exchanges, Beijing will continuously build BRI meeting rooms, expanding its international circle of friendship.
Mutual learning among civilizations requires people-to-people exchanges and cooperation. In the future, Beijing will focus on the five fields of culture, tourism, education, medical care and sports to expand international cultural exchanges and cooperation.
According to the Plan, Beijing will join hands with partners to build a Silk Road for health, continue to implement the BRI international health cooperation program and signature projects of WHO collaborating centers, jointly carry out scientific research, cultivate professional talent, formulate standard guidelines, and enhance international exchanges on health care. Beijing will support the application for establishing Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) overseas centers, hold a successful Conference for Overseas Chinese TCM Professionals, and promote the building of international comprehensive TCM service platforms.
In terms of international exchanges in culture, tourism and sports, Beijing will build the China Cultural Center in Athens with high standards, continuously enrich signature events such as Beijing Night and the Charm of Beijing, attract renowned troupes and artists from BRI partner countries to perform in Beijing, deliver a successful Beijing Design Week, promote the building of the Zhangjiawan Design Town, and help "Beijing design" go global. It will promote the building of the Beijing Institute for International Olympic Studies and continuously enhance its international influence as a dual Olympic city.
(Reporter: Cao Zheng)
