The top 100 industrial parks was announced at the 2017 China Industrial Park Sustainable De­velopment Forum held by the Development Institute of Tongji University School of Economics and Man­agement on December 3, which shed new light on future progress of the parks.

The Beijing Zhongguancun Sci­ence Park, Shanghai Zhangjiang National Innovation Demonstra­tion Zone and Suzhou Industrial Park have been named as the top three among the 365 parks in China.

Tianjin, Guangzhou, Wuhan and Qingdao, also made it into China’s top 10 ranked for the fifth consecutive year, while Ji­angsu Province dominated the list by taking 20 places, more than any other province in the country.

A blueprint about the sustain­able development of China’s 365 national industrial parks was also released at the forum, revealing how they continued to play a crucial role as strong engines in regional economic development.

According to the blueprint, the parks, including economic de­velopment areas and high-tech development zones, produced a total gross domestic product (GDP) of more than 17 trillion yuan last year, or nearly 23 percent of the whole GDP in the country. They also paid over 2.9 trillion yuan of tax to the country, accounting for about one fourth of the total in the country, while their export earn­ings also went beyond 5.5 trillion yuan, or 40 percent of the national total.

The parks revealed a faster GDP growth than the nation as a whole. Among them, the high-tech parks had their GDP growth increased by 8.9 percent, faster than the 7.1 percent in the economic develop­ment zones.

Speaking at the forum, Ren Hao, Professor of Tongji University School of Economics and Management, Director of the Tongji development institute, said that improvement on “law, institution and mechanism” would help the parks enhance efficiency in industrial transformation and development driven by technological innovation, maintaining sustainable developing manage­ment in the new era.

From the perspectives of “law, institution and mechanism”, he also pointed out some core problems in the parks under the current circumstances, such as having several departments make decisions in respective areas but lacking coordination at the central government level; having policies issued by ministries but lacking legislation; having definite admin­istrative organizations but lacking legal statuses; emphasizing mech­anism for attracting investment but neglecting measures to retain companies and help them develop; emphasizing making plans while neglecting enforcement; em­phasizing self-development but neglecting cooperation.

Ren also provided suggestions for sustainable development of industrial parks in the new era.

He said the central government should set up an organization to coordinate all the parks and issue policies from a higher level.

Authorities should grant clear legal statuses for parks and deepen reforms on mixed ownership, as well as balance the departments’ jurisdiction on both economic and social affairs.

He also said the parks should maintain their efforts in attract­ing investment, but also need to emphasize building up mecha­nisms to cultivate and retain companies. When attracting tal­ent into companies, the parks also need to build up mechanisms of talent introduction, deployment and development in administra­tion organizations in the zones.

Besides making plans, the parks also have to lay out clear-cut mech­anisms to carry them out, said Ren, adding that they also have to accelerate deeper cooperation be­tween parks to develop “chemical industrial agglomeration” rather than “physical agglomeration.”

Ren also pointed out four key paths for innovation in park ad­ministration—innovation in park service management, innovation in park operation management, innovation in park investment management and innovation in park cooperation management.

More than 450 people par­ticipated in the forum, including officials from the National Devel­opment and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Science and Tech­nology, the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Environmental Protection, representatives from the top 100 industrial parks and experts from universities.

Four parallel forums were also held during the event to address topics including law, mechanism, innovation and startups in parks, as well as smart parks.