SCMP: “Entrepreneurs in China’s southwest are dreaming of turning the city of Chengdu into the world’s next Silicon Valley as the government encourages more investment outside the booming coastal regions.
Small start-ups as well as big-name western companies have flocked to the metropolis of 14 million people, attracted by cheap labour costs and favourable government investment policies and hoping to tap into China’s rapidly expanding consumer market.
And the Silicon Valley dream is becoming reality as the city, already a hi-tech manufacturing hub, seeks increasingly to become a magnet for software development and innovation.
Between one-third to one-half of the iPads sold worldwide are assembled in Chengdu, while computer giant Intel makes up to half of its chips in the city.
Far from the booming coastal regions, Chengdu can offer perks through the government’s “Go West” development programme, with incentives for start-ups such as one-year interest-free loans.
So far it has attracted about 29,000 companies to its 130-square-kilometre “hi-tech development zone”, including about 1,000 foreign enterprises.
Chengdu is also developing a nearby “Software Park” as the city aims to go beyond manufacturing and become a centre of innovation.”
via Chengdu aims to be world’s next Silicon Valley | South China Morning Post.
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