Jiading to invest $48m to boost innovation

Jiading district in Shanghai plans to invest 300 million yuan ($48 million) to introduce 1,000 talents with innovative ideas in the next three years for its sustained economic growth.

"It is one of the major strategies the district has worked out to create a favorable environment for innovators to realize their innovation dreams," Ma Chunlei, director of Jiading district government, said at the two-day Demo China 2013, which closed in Jiading on Thursday.

The district has built several industrial parks for investors and helped industrial capital connect with the financial sector by setting up more than 500 financial companies.

"But we will emphasize most of our energy on attracting more talents from home and abroad to promote the district's technology innovation, a key factor affecting Jiading's long-term development," Ma said.

The forum, which was co-sponsored by Entrepreneur Company and Jiading district government, featured guest speakers who discussed how to develop Internet, mobile Internet, culture creativity and clean energy technologies.

"We aim to build an innovation platform, by launching such a forum, for innovators and investors to become the next Steve Jobs," said Nan Lixin, CEO of Entrepreneur Company.

Her words were echoed by Ma, who said innovation has helped Jiading develop into an auto city that had sales of 270 billion yuan last year.

Jiading has more than 100 auto research and development institutions, and efforts will be made to set up an additional 120 similar institutions over the next several years, Ma said.

"Our purpose is to turn Jiading into one of China's important bases to develop and manufacture electric vehicles by 2015," he said.