With the implementation of the Torch program – a plan to promote the development of hi-tech industries in China – starting in August 1988, all provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions took positive actions to establish hi-tech industrial development zones.                         

By the end of 2017, there were 168 State-level hi-tech industrial development zones around the country. Jiangsu province alone had 18, ranking first among all provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions.

Most of Jiangsu's national hi-tech zones are settled in the more developed prefecture-level cities, but three are in the province's county-level cities, including Kunshan, Jiangyin and Changshu.

1. Kunshan New and Hi-tech Industrial Development Zone

Kunshan New and Hi-tech Industrial Development Zone (KSND), with a planning area of 118 square meters, was founded in 1994 and was given its current name in 2006. It became the first national-level hi-tech zone based in a county-level city in China in 2010.

KSND has a strong hi-tech industrial foundation due to always attaching great importance to technical innovation and the application of new technologies, and positively promoting high-technology industrialization in accordance with the standards of a national hi-tech zone.

Before being upgraded to a national-level hi-tech zone, it had developed three innovation platforms, introduced hundreds of research and development (R&D) institutions, and initially formed three leading industrial clusters for precision machinery, renewable energy and electronic information. Emerging industries, including digital equipment, intelligent manufacturing and biomedicine industries, were also introduced. 

The zone's GDP in 2009 was 37.76 billion yuan ($5.4 billion) and its total industrial output value reached 132.6 billion yuan, of which 107.6 billion yuan was created by hi-tech industries. The comprehensive strength of the zone's development ranked fifth among all kinds of development zones in Jiangsu province for three consecutive years from 2007. The number of invention patent applications in 2009 totaled 3,222.

Kunshan has ranked first among the Top 100 Counties of China for the past 14 years. That list evaluates the comprehensive strength of counties' development. From 2007 to 2017, the city's GDP has had a compound annual growth rate of 6.77 percent.

In 2017, KSND's GDP reached 71.02 billion yuan, accounting for 20.18 percent of the city's total. By the end of 2017, there were 5,736 enterprises in the zone, including 66 with an annual industrial output value above 20 million yuan, and the industrial value added amounted to 26.72 billion yuan.

The total export-import volume reached $5.92 billion, a year-on-year increase of 7.1 percent, of which exports accounted for 3.42 billion dollars. Registered foreign capital was 421.16 million dollars, an increase of 156.3 percent over the previous year, while actual utilized foreign capital reached 190.19 million dollars, a year-on-year increase of 18.8 percent.

Kunshan New and Hi-tech Industrial Development Zone [Photo/ks.gov.cn]