By Kari Williamson

Lux Research has looked at over 1500 established industrial parks in China and found that around 6%, or 85 parks, have “substantial” emerging technology activity at the same time as having a negligible foreign presence.

A large part of these are university science parks, according to the Lux report Seeing the Forest and the Trees: Navigating China's Industry Park Innovation Engine.

Many of the parks offer better access to Government authorities, favourable policies such as tax refunds and other value-added services.

Key findings from the report include:

• Emerging technology in the industry parks will inevitably grow in quality and quantity as low margin manufacturers are displaced by an increasing wave of technology-driven start-ups;
• Beijing and Shanghai will continue as centres of excellence, but growing capability from leading universities in other key provinces will create new innovation hubs; and
• Favourable financial considerations for start-ups incubated in industry parks and a new entrepreneurial freedom for state-owned enterprises will bring a new, positive innovation influence to high-tech parks.

“The Chinese government has dedicated a huge effort and significant investment in supporting the development of technology, especially emerging technologies, in China. Administrators and policy makers in developing regions remain committed to growing the overall industry park content in their regions to fuel growth," says Richard Jun Li, the Shanghai-based Research Director of the China Innovation Intelligence service.

“There is little doubt that both the number of high-tech industry parks and the emerging technology content will grow throughout the 12th five year plan and, in all likelihood, beyond.”