(Yicai Global) Sept. 16 -- The Yangtze River Delta region, which made up almost a quarter of China's total economic output last year, will build the first cross-provincial high-tech development zone to further enhance regional integration, according to a new document.

Shanghai and neighboring Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces yesterday jointly issued the second batch of supporting measures for the development of the Yangtze River Delta Integration Demonstration Zone, proposing to build a high-tech zone covering Qingpu district in Shanghai, Wujiang district in Suzhou, Jiangsu, and Jiashan county in Jiaxing, Zhejiang, with a total area of about 19.5 square kilometers.

China elevated the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta region to a national strategy in November 2018. One year later, the Yangtze River Delta Integration Demonstration Zone covering an area of 2,300 sq km across Qingpu, Wujiang, and Jiashan, was officially established.

In July 2020, the three local governments jointly released the first batch of measures to support the construction of the demonstration zone. Most of them, including establishing a CNY10 billion (USD1.4 billion) special fund to provide start-up capital for key projects, have already been implemented, Hua Yuan, deputy secretary-general of the Shanghai Municipal Government, said at a conference yesterday.

The new high-tech zone would focus on cultivating emerging industries, such as integrated circuits, new materials, and communication electronics, and strive to reach the same development level of national industrial parks within three to five years, the new documents noted.

The supporting policies also include promoting the cooperation between renowned universities and the demonstration zone to build high-end innovation institutions, advance the mutual recognition of electronic licenses and exchange of government data within the demonstration zone to optimize the business environment, and supporting the synergistic development of educational resources and encouraging the reasonable flow of talents within the demonstration zone.

The Yangtze River Delta, including Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Anhui, achieved a gross domestic product of CNY27.6 trillion (USD4 trillion) last year, accounting for 24.1 percent of China's total GDP and 29.8 percent of the country's research and development investment, according to official statistics.

Editors: Dou Shicong, Futura Costaglione