A jewel in Suzhou's crown

Elevators, escalators and other machines are made by SJEC Corp in Suzhou Industrial Park. Photos by Sheng Zheng / For China Daily

The Chinese saying "Up above is heaven and down below are Suzhou and Hangzhou" is often cited when talking of the two Chinese cities and their beauty, which seems to know no bounds.

With feet firmly on the ground and in a much more prosaic mood, those who awarded the Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize in March gave the nod to Suzhou out of 36 cities worldwide. The prize honors what the organizers call "outstanding contributions towards creating livable and sustainable urban communities".

Three of the jewels in Suzhou's crown are the old city and its canals, often likened to Venice, and a high-tech development park and Suzhou Industrial Park.

The fact that the last of those has been developed in conjunction with Singapore and that the world city prize is organized by Singapore's Urban Redevelopment Authority may be no coincidence. The prize is named after the former prime minister of Singapore, who, organizers say, "was instrumental in developing Singapore into a distinctive, clean and green garden city in a short span of a few decades".

Yang Zhiping, director of Suzhou Industrial Park's management committee, says that from the start it was designed to develop into an area with all the functions of a city.

"The Singaporean model was strictly followed, and it has proven to be crucial to the park's development. One important thing we learned from Singapore was that the park should be designed to be a new city that was very livable and that at the same time had a vibrant business environment."

Little more than 20 years after the park was set up, it seems to have achieved those goals, thanks in no small part to the joint construction and development of the park by China and Singapore. It has become one of China's leading industrial zones and has been the top destination for foreign capital in the last few years, Yang says.

The park covers about 28 square kilometers, 3.4 percent of Suzhou's total area, and 5.2 percent of the city's population lives there. The fact that it has fulfilled its mission to provide business vibrancy is clear when you consider that 91 Fortune 500 companies have invested in the park, and that it accounted for 15 percent of the city's GDP last year. Total GDP of the park was 190 billion yuan ($30.4 billion), 9.4 percent higher than in the previous year.

The fulfillment of its mission to provide livability is attested to by Strom Kong, 53, general manager of Anaren Communication Suzhou Co Ltd, who has lived in Suzhou for about 12 years. The park vividly reflects the city's achievements, he says.

"Life here is comfortable and relaxed, and business is thriving," says Kong, who is also chairman of the Suzhou Committee of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai.

Anaren Communication Suzhou Co Ltd was set up in 1992 and was one of the first foreign companies to invest in the park when it opened two years later.

"The park is very international," Kong says. "Living and working in it makes us feel at home," says Kong.

He has a daughter and a son, both of whom are studying in international schools affiliated with the park.

Since the park was set up, about 200 officials have been to Singapore and received management training there.

Those who manage the industrial park, apart from encouraging foreign companies to invest in the park, also help companies located there to go global. One such company is SJEC Corp, which makes lifts and escalators, computer control machines and energy-saving motors, and has sold its products to about 100 countries and regions.

When the company was set up in 1992 its products were aimed at the international market, says Jin Zhifeng, president of SJEC. At that point, China's elevator industry was still in the initial stages of development, and "we had to export all of our products".

Last year, the company says, it had sales revenue of about 2.5 billion yuan, 20 percent higher than the year before.

The company expects sales revenue to rise 15 percent this year, Jin says, with international sales accounting for 30 percent of that.

SJEC greatly increased its profile when it supplied products for the Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008 and the Shanghai World Expo in 2010.

Jin's appreciation of Chinese culture is clear in the company's headquarters, where many traditional artworks such as Chinese knots and paintings are displayed. About 700 employees work there, 300 of them in a research and development center. Every year about 6 percent of sales revenue is put into research and development, Jin says.

Being located in the Suzhou Industrial Park has been invaluable in helping the company grow globally, he says.

"The park is run in a very open-minded way. We get a lot of support from the officials, who often visit us and help us solve problems."

One of the biggest constraints for the company's development is a dearth of talent, he says.

"The cost of living in Suzhou has risen, and that makes it very difficult for us to retain talent."

Being an innovator is what helps the company stand out from the competition, he says.

"For example, we are now trying to come up with a lift that can be used even during a fire."

Another company located in the park, Higer Bus Co Ltd, is also developing its international sales relying on strong R&D.

The company, founded in 1998, has a bus manufacturing operation covering 800,000 square meters in the park. Last year the company sold 25,810 buses, bringing in revenue of 9.15 billion yuan, and its products were exported to 85 countries and regions, including Africa, the Americas, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Russia and South Asia.

"We invest about 5 percent of our sales revenue in R&D, and we attach great importance to international sales," says Ji Yongping, a company spokesman.

International sales account for about 13 percent of total sales, and that is expected to rise to 16 percent within three years, he says.

Higer Bus employs more than 6,000 people, of whom more than 1,100 are professionals and technicians, and it makes 35,000 large and medium-sized buses and coaches and chassis a year.

In addition to the factory that makes buses, the company has a post-doctoral research center, Jiangsu's provincial enterprise technology center, and a new express bus and coach R&D center.

But even as Suzhou enjoys the accolades and celebrates its success, some warn that it cannot rest on its laurels.

Lu Jinyong, director of the China Research Center for Foreign Direct Investment at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, says that while the rapid growth of the Suzhou's Industrial Park underlines China's success in reform and opening-up, such parks now need to change.

"China as a whole is facing the challenge of transformation from 'made in China' to 'created in China'. Many industrial parks that developed by attracting labor-intensive industries need to attract more high-tech, low-polluting industries to upgrade themselves."

Yang Zhiping says that the park has indeed been making efforts to upgrade.

"The park aims to become a world standard for high-tech industrial parks and a modern and eco-balanced new type of city. We have begun to attract many service industries including finance companies, insurance companies and other services such as tourism. About 40 percent of GDP in the park now comes from the services industry. But manufacturing is still very important in the park. Still, we also have to move low value-added and polluting industries out. The park has been very selective in introducing new companies, and only those with a good reputation or high output are welcome."

Companies that have moved out of the park can figure out a way to develop more eco-friendly and value-added industries and can move back if they succeed in doing, he says.

"We have also been trying to establish more research and development centers so as to produce high value-added goods."

The park has built close ties with many domestic R&D institutions and universities, including the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an Jiaotong University and Nanjing University to develop centers of new technologies such as nanotechnology and biomedicine.