Located in the geometric center of Dongguan, Songshan Lake Hi-Tech Industrial Development Zone (the “Zone”) is situated in the gold hinterland of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA), with Hong Kong and Shenzhen to the south and Guangzhou to the north. It is the core innovation platform of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Macao Science and Technology Innovation Corridor and currently ranks 21st in the overall ranking of hi-tech zones in China.

1. Development history
   

From its establishment to the present, the Zone has undergone the following four main stages of development: The first is the initial development stage. In 2001, Dongguan Municipal Government planned ahead for the transformation and innovation of the development model and proposed the development and construction of the Songshan Lake Science and Technology Industrial Park, with a planning control area of 72 square kilometers. In 2006, Dongguan Municipal Government made the decision to integrate the land at the junctions of six towns, including Liaobu Town and Hengli Town, along the Liaobu-Qiaotou Expressway, to develop and build the Dongguan Eco-Industrial Park, with a planning control area of 31 square kilometers. The second is the stage of accelerated development. In September 2010, the Zone was upgraded to a national high-tech industrial development zone by the State Council. One year later, Dongguan Eco-Industrial Park became one of the first provincial-level circular economy industrial parks in Guangdong Province. In 2013, the Zone was approved to build a national ecological demonstration industrial park. The third is the stage of integrated development. In December 2014, Dongguan Municipal Government decided to merge Songshan Lake Hi-Tech Zone and Dongguan Eco-Industrial Park for integrated development. In September 2015, the Zone was successfully selected as one of the National Independent Innovation Demonstration Zones in the Pearl River Delta, with a preliminary spatial layout of “1+2+N” (one axis + two cores + surrounding towns). In March 2017, Songshan Lake and six surrounding towns, including Shilong Town, Liaobu Town, Dalingshan Town, Dalang Town, Shipai Town and Chashan Town, formed the Songshan Lake Area, raising the curtain of integrated cluster development of parks in Dongguan City for the first time. The Songshan Lake Science City, with large-scale scientific facilities such as China Spallation Neutron Source (CSNS) as its core, and the Eastern Industrial Park in Qishi Town were also included in the integrated zone. In April 2019, Dongguan Municipal Government launched a reform to optimize the system of towns directly under municipal administration by strengthening the co-ordination of the functional areas. In this context, three towns, namely Hengli Town, Dongkeng Town and Qishi Town were added to the Songshan Lake functional area on top of the original Songshan Lake area characterized by the “1+6” pattern, to coordinate the development in five aspects, namely the development planning of “one park and nine towns”, regional development, industrial development, major project construction and government service efficiency enhancement, within the functional area. The fourth is the stage of developing into a comprehensive national science center. In July 2020, the Songshan Lake Science City was officially included as a pilot zone of the comprehensive national science center in the GBA. In September 2020, the eleventh plenary session of the fourteenth municipal party committee proposed to focus on four positions: the source of major original innovations, the base for pilot tests and commercialization of achievements, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Cooperation and Innovation Community and the comprehensive pilot zone for institutional innovation, and to mobilize the whole city’s efforts to develop the Songshan Lake Science City into a highland of original innovation with global influence.

II. Development status

1. Focus on the development of major platforms.It is planned that a 90.52 m²Songshan Lake Science City will be built relying on CSNS, the Southern Advanced Light Source and the Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory. In July 2020, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Science and Technology approved the Guangming Science City-Songshan Lake Science City area as the main part of the comprehensive national science center in the GBA to be launched first, positioning it as a centralized bearing area for major facilities, platforms and other innovation resources while formally incorporating it into the national strategic blueprint. The City University of Hong Kong (Dongguan) and the Greater Bay Area University (Songshan Lake Campus) will settle in Songshan Lake Science City, with construction scheduled to start in 2021. The planning and construction work of the Eastern Industrial Park is in full swing.

2. Aggregation of elements of innovation resources has been accelerating. A sound development trend where “five first-class” elements of innovation, namely first-class platforms, first-class enterprises, first-class institutions, first-class universities and first-class talents, aggregate at an accelerated speed has initially formed. There are 320 national high-tech enterprises, 30 new R&D institutions, 14 national incubators as well as 189 key laboratories and engineering research centers at municipal level or above. The coverage rate of R&D centers of enterprises above designated size has reached 57.47%, and the ratio of R&D to GDP is 9.46%. The Zone is home to over 99,000 talents of all kinds; 12 double-employed academicians and another 33 academicians carrying out scientific research in the Zone through project cooperation and other forms of special engagement; 65 national-level talents; 103 provincial and municipal innovation and entrepreneurship leaders; 277 municipal special talents, accounting for 62% of all such talents in the city; 25 innovation and entrepreneurship teams under the Guangdong “Pearl River Talents Plan”, accounting for 69% of all such teams in the city; and 23 Dongguan innovative scientific research teams, accounting for 57.1% of all such teams in the city.

3. The industrial economic system is becoming more and more complete.The information technology industry has developed in both size and strength, gathering a group of leading enterprises such as Huawei Device, Huabei Electronic Technology, SYTECH, TP-LINK and Goertek. Focusing on expanding the bio-industry, the Zone has introduced bio-industry enterprises such as HEC, Hongshanhu Pharmaceuticals, Fapon Biotech, Zhongsheng Pharma and CapitalBio Genomics and has gathered more than 300 bio-technology enterprises of all kinds. It has been vigorously promoting intelligent equipment manufacturing industry and has introduced a group of representative enterprises such as INOVANCE and Topstar, forming a robotics industry cluster with robotics system integrators, core component enterprises and intelligent equipment enterprises as the key players. It has cultivated emerging industries such as new energy and new materials, with 23 new materials industry enterprises above designated size, and has introduced new projects in such fields as new energy lithium-ion battery pack, Gospower power solutions and CR POWER distributed energy resources. At present, there are 11,389 market entities of all kinds registered in the Zone, of which 90.41% are enterprises. The Zone is also home to 4 listed enterprises and 34 back-up enterprises for IPO, ranking first in the city.

4. Make further progress in coordinating functional areas. The “four beams and eight pillars” policy system for the integration of functional areas has basically taken shape; the integration of “five major areas”, namely development planning, regional development, investment attraction, major project construction and efficiency enhancement of government services, has been advancing with sound momentum; and the integration of science and technology industry, public transport and government services has been accelerated. The Zone has successfully taken over 165 tasks delegated by the municipal government and increased administrative approval efficiency by an average of 12%. The pattern of industrial division of labor is being actively formed with “the Zone focusing on basic research and development and the nine towns undertaking commercialization of results”. Besides, the Zone is radiating a wider and wider area with its strength. In 2019, the gross regional product of the functional areas accounted for 26.6% of the city’s total, a year-on-year increase of 8%.

5. The city’s soft power continues to increase. Huawei Developer Conference was held in Songshan Lake for two consecutive sessions, and Songshan Lake served as the finish line of the Asian Marathon Championships and Dongguan International Marathon for two consecutive sessions. The Zone was awarded as a National Intellectual Property Pilot and Demonstration Zone and a national base for foreign trade transformation and upgrading. The International Robotics Industry Base was selected as a national demonstration base for business incubation, and several “national” brands have set up offices and factories in the Zone. The Hong Kong and Macao Youth Innovation and Entrepreneurship Base has been included in the Outline Development Plan for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, becoming one of the first 10 “Guangdong-Hong Kong Youth Innovation and Entrepreneurship Bases” in Guangdong Province. The Songshan Lake International Innovation and Entrepreneurship Community has been put into operation, creating an international, youthful, intelligent and ecological “innovation and entrepreneurship city that never sleeps”.

6. The quality of the urban environment is constantly improving.With 8 km²of lake, 6.5 km²of wetlands and a green coverage rate of over 60%, the Zone ranked first in the final list of “Clean Dongguan Index Assessment” in 2019. It has a sound education chain covering all stages of education from early childhood education to higher education, with high-quality educational resources such as Dongguan Institute of Technology, Guangdong Medical University and Dongguan Middle School-SSL School. The Songshan Lake Campus of Donghua Hospital is officially open, marking the establishment of a community health care system characterized by “one center and multiple sites”. The construction of TOD in the north, TID at Songshan Lake Central Station and the southern urban complex has been accelerated to further improve urban functions and enhance the quality of the city.

　(Last updated on August 9, 2021)