Economic circle drives integral development of electronic information industry

Liangjiang New Area is home to many electronic information companies, including leading player BOE.[Photo by Zhang Kunkun]

In the factory of Zhiguan Technology, eight die-cutting machines are operating at total capacity to produce adhesive tapes, an indispensable material for touchscreen. The products will be sent to an electronics company in Mianyang, Sichuan province.

Based in Chongqing Liangjiang New Area, Zhiguan Technology manufactures die-cutting products and provides flexible materials for electronics. The company entered the Sichuan market in 2020 when the national strategy of the Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Circle was laid out to build Sichuan and Chongqing into a driver of high-quality development in western China and a gateway for inland opening-up.

The company signed the first contract for 1 million pieces of adhesive tapes with a company in Mianyang and delivered the products every week. "They intend to localize their supply chain fully, and our products are fit for their use, so we decided to cooperate," said Feng Kui, sales director of Zhiguan Technology.

Compared with coastal provinces, the electronic information industry in the economic circle faces a higher logistics cost due to the lack of local suppliers. Still, the situation is improving as the two cities collaborate to build an electronic information industrial cluster, according to Feng.

The electronic information industry is advantageous for Sichuan and Chongqing, a traditional industrial hub in Southwest China. Targeting a world-class industrial cluster, the two cities are jointly promoting integral industry development by building information exchange platforms and industrial parks, making efforts on investment attraction, and upgrading the industry to form a whole industrial system of chips, screens, devices, core parts, and the Internet of Things (IoT).

Data shows that the electronic information industry in the economic circle covers all the five industrial categories and accounts for 10 percent of the nation's full scale. In 2022, the industrial scale in the region hit 2.2 trillion yuan ($311.3 billion).

Chongqing Liangjiang New Area and Sichuan Tianfu New Area, two national-level development areas in the region, established eight industry alliances in 2021 to promote industrial development in the economic circle. The electronic information industry is among the eight alliances built to elevate industries by completing the industrial chain, securing the supply chain, and enhancing interconnected cooperation.

During a government-held industry event last year, Zhiguan Technology had the opportunity to connect with a company based in Chengdu that specializes in the automotive display sector. Feng, a representative from Zhiguan, expressed positive sentiment towards the possibility of collaboration opportunities this year. The consistent exchange and growth within the economic circle have paved the way for more opportunities for industry participants, which has fostered optimism towards future partnerships.

We expect the region to attract more companies along the industry chain, so we can cut logistics costs and spend more on R&D, and we hope the industry alliance can create more opportunities for us for information exchange and bridging cooperation, Feng added.