Tianjin - The municipality of Tianjin will focus on innovation in the coming five years, with a slew of strategically-important research and development projects in the pipeline, the municipality's mayor said.

"Independent research and the capability to innovate have been regarded as the key to transform the pattern of development and reinforce regional competitiveness," Tianjin Mayor Huang Xingguo told China Daily during an exclusive interview.

Priority projects, such as high-speed railway locomotives and high-power wind turbines, are expected to be finished during the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015) period, Huang elaborated.

China Northern Locomotive and Rolling Stock Industry (Group) Corporation (China CNR), a major high-end railway locomotive manufacturer in China, has set up a research and development hub for high-speed locomotive raw material and technology innovation in Tianjin.

The current investment for the research and development center is 10 million yuan ($1.5 million), and its scope of research and functions are set to expand in the future.

China CNR will invest another 3 billion yuan in Tianjin, setting up an industrial park devoted to the assembly of wind turbines, urban railway manufacturing and maintenance, electric engine and appliance maintenance and high-speed railway locomotive core component research and manufacturing.

According to Chen Baoliang, deputy chief engineer of China CNR's Tianjin subsidiary, the industrial park will commence with the production of high-speed urban railway trains, and will expand its focus to intercity high-speed railway locomotives, with products to be used on express railroads linking Tianjin with Tangshan and Qinhuangdao.

The industrial park will go on stream in the very near future and is expected to generate an annual revenue of more than 5 billion yuan, Chen told China Daily.

China CNR's project is just one of Tianjin's innovation-oriented projects in the coming five years.

"Tianjin will build 10 international-oriented key laboratories and a host of engineering research centers during the next five years," Huang added.

Tianjin will establish State-level demonstration hubs for aviation and aerospace, petrochemical engineering, heavy equipment manufacturing, electronics and information, biological pharmacy, alternative materials and energy and national defense technology.

"Our ultimate target is that by the end of the 12th Five-Year Plan period, the overall output of these competitive key industries would have contributed to 95 percent of the overall industrial output in Tianjin," Huang stressed.

Currently, the output of Tianjin's eight dominant industries, including aviation and aerospace, electronics and information, and national defense technology, account for 90 percent of the municipality's industrial output.

The municipality's GDP exceeded 900 billion yuan in 2010, which is 2.3 times of that in 2005. The annual GDP growth rate was an average 16 percent from 2006 to 2010, and is expected to average 12 percent from 2011 to 2015.

China Daily

(China Daily 04/13/2011 page2)