Nansha rewards scientific innovation in 2020

Guangzhou's Nansha district released a total of 150 million ($23.22 million) yuan in subsidies for 246 local scientific institutes and companies in 2020, a year-on-year increase of 13.6 percent, officials said during a seminar held on Jan 28.

The seminar invited representatives from more than 20 scientific institutes and companies to share their opinions and suggestions on future scientific innovation development. 

Nansha has achieved a phased progress in establishing a scientific innovation platform system. Nansha Science City has been listed among the core areas for building a national comprehensive science center in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

The Mingzhu Science Park of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has clustered more than 10 CAS scientific institutes and innovation platforms including the Guangzhou branch of the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS), the Guangdong Institute of Intelligent Unmanned System and the South China Sea Institute of Oceanology of CAS.

The core industrial park of the Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Guangzhou) has started construction, clustering 47 high-caliber scientific research teams including 16 led by academicians. 

Statistics from the Nansha science and technology bureau show that a total of 335 innovation platforms had been built in Nansha by the end of 2020, which is 3.4 times the 2019 figure.

Nansha's software industry and information service industry had both seen an annual growth of around 40 percent for two consecutive years by 2020, and other industries such as artificial intelligence and life and health have also seen rapid growth. 

Investment in research and development across the whole of Nansha climbed to 5.05 billion yuan in 2019, up from 2.34 billion yuan in 2015.

A total of 611 technical contracts were registered in Nansha in 2020, with an overall contract value of 16.06 billion yuan, an increase of 135.03 percent year-on-year. The district's total technical transactions reached 14.67 billion yuan, up 118.7 percent year-on-year, ranking fifth in Guangzhou. 

In addition, the district attracted 294 high-tech companies in 2020, a year-on-year growth of 53 percent.