Shanghai's Songjiang District has begun to reap the benefits of industrial development arising from its supply-side reform, Shanghai Daily learned yesterday.
Over the first three quarters, Songjiang's industrial tax revenue jumped 23.7 percent from the same period of last year, reversing the annual decline of 11.5 percent for the whole of 2015.
Songjiang's achievement was due to its supply-side reform trimming 17.5 billion yuan ($2.5 billion) in the output of low-added-value industries and closing 683 low-efficient companies. The district, however, set up a fund to pump 2 billion yuan annually to support advanced technological startups to propel the growth of promising small and medium enterprises.
"Only radical reforms would pave way for the economy to boom," Cheng Xiangmin, the district's Party secretary, said at a district government meeting.
Industrial production, contributing over 50 percent of the district's GDP annually, slowed in the past five years with annual output value growing 2 percent, down from 23 percent during the 19 previous years as "our advantages on the cost of labor and resources no longer last," Cheng said.
Songjiang has moved to transform its economy by backing advanced technological and innovative industries. Songjiang expects high-tech and smart manufacturing to meet a target of over 25 percent of its total industrial output value by 2020.
