Zhangjiagang sets course for restructuring

By Zhang Haizhouzhanghaizhou@chinadaily.儲存倉com.cnAn intricate model of the PLA Navy's minesweeper Zhangjiagang occupies a place of distinction in Yao Linrong's office, where the Party chief steers the course of the city for which the warship is named. Yao said the roughly 1-meter replica is a gift from the marines stationed in Jiangsu province. But the model has a greater symbolic meaning. The clean and modern lines of Zhangjiagang, sleekly built to forge ahead through fair weather and rough seas, is like a metaphor for the city itself.In many ways, the model vessel has come to reflect Yao's ambitions for Zhangjiagang, one of China's leading cities. "I very much hope to have another company like the Shagang Group in new industries, and I'm very confident about that," Yao said in a recent interview, referring to the city's ongoing endeavor to transform from a traditional industrial base into a hub of new industries and high technology. "When there's a big vessel in the water, smaller boats won't be afraid." Lying in China's prosperous eastern coastal Jiangsu province, Zhangjiagang's GDP in 2012 reached 205 billion yuan ($33.06 billion), ranking third among all county-level cities nationwide. Its population is about 1.3 million.Its transformation coincides with the country's 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-15), during which the nation as a whole is shifting toward a model of quality growth.Founded in 1975, Shagang Group, China's largest private steelmaker, has long been Zhangjiagang's leading firm, and it is the city's only Fortune Global 500 company. It ranked 318th globally this year, with $34.56 billion in revenue and $94.5 million in profit.But given the current overcapacity in China's steel industry, Yao said it is urgent to seek out new drivers of growth in such emerging industries as re-manufacturing, alternative energy, new material and IT."The economy needs to grow more, but both emissions and land consumption need to be kept in check. Only by pursuing a green patch can growth be explosive," Yao said.To fulfill the goal, Zh迷你倉最平ngjiagang needs more talent, Yao said. "(We need) talented people from a large variety of different sectors, especially those teams with technology," Yao said. "Attracting talented teams that have their own technology is like stocking the pond with fish eggs in the hope that one day we will have a shark," Yao said. "The Shagang Group is already a shark, but traditional industries can no longer lead to explosive growth."Yao said he visited the United States in this April to recruit more talented people."The Silicon Valley is a forest of talent— we want to build some woods first. This is our dream," he said.Zhangjiagang is already on the move to attract more talented people in recent years. It invested 170 million yuan in recruitment this year. It has brought in 228 leading projects of innovative and startup talents and eight talents of National Thousand Talents Program. The sales revenue of Zhangjiagang's talent projects reached 1.4 billion yuan in 2012.The city evaluated the recruitment efforts of local businesses earlier this year. Five enterprises were recognized among the first batch of leading model enterprises for innovative and startup professions.Launched last June, the evaluation system is guided by the local government and a team headed by China's leading talent management specialist Gui Zhaoming, a professor of Wuhan Institute of Technology. It has made the quality of talent project evidence-oriented."We hope to have more than 1,000 PhDs by the end of 2015 and cultivate 100 technology-based firms, each with annual sales revenue of more than 100 million yuan," Yao said.Stressing the need to bring in more talented people from the outside, Yao also noted the local people's role "as the main body" in the city's transformation.The local people will be a stable workforce for those technology teams brought into the city, Yao said."Technology teams need to join hands with local firms, which have the capital and are more familiar with the market," he said. "Zhangjiagang is known for its strong spirit of entrepreneurship." 迷你倉