High-tech hub draws business start-ups

Zhongguancun, dubbed China's Silicon Valley for its high-tech products and services, intends to transform from an electronics-dominated enterprise zone into an innovation-oriented incubator by focusing on business start-ups.

In a plan announced last month by the tech hub, a 7-kilometer street from Tsinghua University in the north to the Capital Gymnasium in the south will be renovated into an innovation center that centers on smart hardware, Internet-plus businesses, cultural industry and other sectors.

The new focus is expected to draw young entrepreneurs who are starting their own businesses after accumulating research experience at universities and institutes that create innovation incentives.

Chu Xiaowei, a 29-year-old engineer for a newly-founded Internet company Minglue Data Co, said his contemporaries like to gather to share their many novel ideas about the Internet industry.

"Many of my peers in Zhongguancun have creative ideas about the Internet that can be carried out to make good products," he said.

Zhongguancun is the country's first innovation demonstration zone, approved by the State Council in 2009, and aims to become a technological innovation center. A large number of Internet companies have a presence there, including Baidu Inc and the northern headquarters of Tencent Holdings, benchmarks for those seeking to start their own Internet companies.

For Zhang Hongjian, CEO of Kingsoft Software, Chinese enterprises have become prime sources for innovation. The younger generations of the 1980s and the 1990s have stepped in with more innovative ideas and created products by contributing to existing companies or establishing their own enterprises, Zhang said.

Chu said there are plenty of opportunities, but new enterprises need simpler procedures to get governmental approval to operate, an opinion Zhang echoed.

"We hope the government can streamline the approval process for company registration and take measures to encourage innovation and new enterprises regardless of the size," Zhang said.

huyongqi@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 11/23/2015 page5)