Suzhou has put forward its own stimulus plans for 10 major industries to cope with the financial crisis and halt the economic decline. It is seeking to boost economic transformation and upgrade and build a rational modern industrial system by optimising the industrial structure and changing the mode of development. It has launched many premium projects and significantly increased investment around the stimulus plans for 10 major industries since the beginning of this year. While traditional projects are undergoing transformation and upgrade, new industries are taking shape.

Suzhou’s new industries are still very small in scale compared with leading industries which boast an annual output value of over Rmb100 billion. In 2008, the output value of the six leading industries, including electronic information, equipment manufacturing, textiles, chemical fibres and garment-making, metallurgy, light industry and petrochemicals, accounted for 93.4% of the total output value of industrial operations above a designated scale. Among them, the electronic information industry was the dominant industry, with output value reaching Rmb643.2 billion, followed by equipment manufacturing and textiles, chemical fibres and garment-making with about Rmb250 billion, and metallurgy and light industry with nearly Rmb200 billion. Even the petrochemical industry boasted an output value of over Rmb130 billion. By comparison, the output value of the new energy, new medicine and new materials industries only added up to Rmb30 billion. Service outsourcing as a modern service industry simply could not compare with manufacturing, with a contract amount of a mere US$630 million.

Although the scale of Suzhou’s new industries is only a fraction that of the petrochemical industry, the smallest of the city’s six leading industries, their potential is not to be underestimated. They are also of particular importance in the building of the modern industrial system. Industry players see great prospects for the new energy industry. China is already among the world’s largest producers of photovoltaic solar energy. Suzhou ranks first in the country in this industry and has laid a solid foundation for the development of green energy and the building of a circular economy. With over 30 photovoltaic production enterprises, the industrialisation of photovoltaic research, development and manufacturing is taking shape in the city.

The new medicine industry as a new frontrunner of high-tech industry promises tremendous social and economic benefits and has great development prospects. Suzhou currently boasts three clinical safety evaluation bases for new medicines, three world-class osteopathic equipment production enterprises and four world-class hearing-aid production enterprises. International pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies that rank among the top 500 in the world, such as Pfizer, Novartis, GlaxoSmithKline and Lilly, already have production facilities in Suzhou.

The new materials industry is an industry with the greatest potential in the 21st century. It is also a high-tech industry with a great impact on the future. There are five new materials industry clusters in Suzhou, including the Changshu High Polymer Materials Industry Base, Taicang Special Functional Materials Industry Base, Kunshan Renewable Energy Industry Base, Zhangjiagang Power Cells Production Base and Wujiang New Materials Industry Base. The Suzhou Institute of Nanotechnology and Nanobionics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has its research and development platform in this city.

Service outsourcing is an important component part of the modern high-end services sector. It is characterised by high technology content, great added value, low resource consumption and high capability in job creation, especially for those with university education, and is hailed as a “green engine” pushing forward economic development. Suzhou has now developed six service outsourcing industrial clusters for software design, animation production, pharmaceutical research and development, financial information processing and modern logistics.

Suzhou’s economic stimulus plans are clearly committed to the development of new industries. The city seeks to achieve an annual growth of 80% for the new energy and service outsourcing industries and an annual growth of about 25% in the output value of the new medicine and new materials industries over the next three years.