Shenzhen plans global incubators to attract tech talent

Shenzhen, the birthplace of China's high-tech giants, plans to build incubators in foreign countries, including the Silicon Valley, Europe and Israel, as the southern city reaches out to global technology talents, the city's mayor said on Sunday.

"We will look for the most cutting-edge programs and talents to serve the well beings of people by using global resources," Xu Qin, mayor of Shenzhen, said at a press briefing.

Shenzhen, which neighbors Hong Kong, was created as the mainland's earliest special economic zone in 1983. The city has been at the forefront of technology innovations and is trying to become China's Silicon Valley. It is the birth place of tech giants, such as Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and ZTE Corp.

The city's R&D investment accounted for 4 percent of its GDP last year, which is about the same as of South Korea.

The city has earmarked information technologies, biotechnologies, renewable energy and new materials as strategic industries and provides about 3 billion yuan annually as subsidies to these companies, Xu said. These industries now contribute about 40 percent of the city's GDP.

Such policies have helped the city weather the global economic downturn. Shenzhen's GDP grew 8.9 percent last year, 0.1 percentage point higher than 2014, while the country's GDP growth hit a record low in 25 years at 6.9 percent.