(Photo/Fan Yuli)

As part of the fifth China International Import Expo (CIIE), the 2022 Key Factors Bridging Conference on High-quality Development of the G60 S&T Innovation Valley of the Yangtze River Delta opened in Shanghai on November 8.

This conference released the mid-term evaluation report of the G60 S&T Innovation Valley, which was set up to build an integrated development platform in the region. It was named after an expressway, G60, which runs through nine cities in the region, namely Songjiang, Jiaxing, Hangzhou, Jinhua, Suzhou, Huzhou, Xuancheng, Wuhu and Hefei.

The accumulated GDP of the nine cities accounted for 1/15 of the country's total. The number of market players, high-tech companies, and those listed in Shanghai Stock Exchange's sci-tech innovation board accounted for 1/16, 1/10 and 1/5 nationwide.

Among the cities, Suzhou's GDP in the first three quarters hit more than 1.697 trillion yuan and its year-on-year growth in this period was 1 percentage point higher than in first half of the year.

The valley's development has focused on seven strategic and emerging industries including integrated circuits, artificial intelligence and biomedicine.

In Suzhou, the output value of IC, aerospace, new materials and biomedicine industry grew by 23%, 33.2%, 10.1% and 6.9% respectively. The production of carbon fibres and their composite materials, new energy vehicles, optical fibres and smartphones grew by 48.4%, 64%, 37.9% and 52% respectively. Suzhou has also become home to the National Center of Technology Innovation for Biopharmaceuticals and other research platforms.