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During the last few years, China has established Science and Technology Park, IT incubators and IT R& D parks all over the country. They will participate in the growth of the China economy together with the IT industry.

Science and Technology Park ²²

China has more than 100 science and technology industry parks, which includes 52 nations science/industry parks, 41 innovation centers, as well as 22 university technology parks. Among them, the following several are of the most important.

Beijing's Zhongguancun Science Park

Built in 1999, Zhongguancun Science Park has played an extremely important role in the capital’s economic growth. According to the statistics issued in 2001, the enterprises in the park zones contributed 60 per cent to Beijing Municipal industrial economic growth. By the end of 2001, the number of the enterprises in the park has reached 10,000, with total turn-over more than 200 billion yuan (US$24.1 billion), an increase by 40.4%, compared with that of the previous year. The total number of professional personnel in the park are as many as 360,000, with an increase of 23. 2 per cent from the previous year.

Zhangjiang High-Tech zone

Zhangjiang High-Tech zone, incubated in 1997, in ShangHai PuDong has the nickname of "Chinese Silicon Valley". The city built a new software area and technology innovation area in 1999 and 365 enterprises have joined the area since then. A brand new intelligent HuJi Garden occupies 18,000 m2 with more than 40,000 m2 building area. 9000 m2 office area and 6000 m2 residential area with 50% green coverage.

Guangdong - Nansha Information Technology Park

A technology park was launched amid the paddy fields and banana groves of Guangzhou's southern Nansha island, aimed at strengthening Hong Kong's position in the Pearl River Delta. A total of 300 million yuan (US$36 million) has been invested in the first phase of the park, which covers 15 hectares and comprises convention and training facilities and a software development center. The 250-hectare park will be developed in three stages and is scheduled for completion in 2010.

Cibercities ²³

Shenzhen

Shenzhen is now China's largest industrialized base of information technology. In 2001, Shenzhen topped major Chinese cities for turning out high-tech products worth 81.98 billion yuan (US$10 billion), which accounted for 40.5 percent of the city's total industrial output value. An increasing number of domestic and over-sea high-tech researchers have come to Shenzhen to start up businesses since it became a special economic zone 20 years ago, making it home to tens of hundreds of companies specializing in high-tech business. There are 1,500 factories producing computer components in Shenzhen. Thirty-six out of the world's top 500 companies and 150 large multinationals have set up high-tech businesses in the city. Dozens of China's state-level research institutions and major universities have headed down south to open research centers and bases that combine production, training and research.

Shanghai

Shanghai, China's leading industrial and commercial city has made effort to turn itself into an international information center. Over the past few years, the city has turned out integrated circuits, computers, mobile telecommunications facilities and a series of other profitable information technology products. Today, Shanghai produces one-fifth of China's integrated circuits, one-third of telecommunications equipment, and 30 percent of IC cards, according to available latest statistics.

Free Trade Zones ²⁴

China has 18 free trade zones along the East coast, including five special economic zones (SEZ) in Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Xiamen, Shantou, and Hainan, respectively. Incentive policies are also introduced in Pudong New District of Shanghai to encourage faster economic growth. In these areas, it has become clear that high technology and science dominate local economic development. Experts predict that in the new century, the high-tech industry will receive a big boost in the country's SEZs.

IT R & D Parks ²⁵

In China, the R & D park is named as software park. There are about 22 Software Parks, but only a few of them have been well developed.