Entrepreneurship and innovation become heated topic at this year’s Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference. Yesterday’s sub-forum, “Talk to Governors/Mayors”, 30 CEOs from transnational corporations raised questions in terms of “innovation” to governors of Tianjin, Hainan, Shanxi and Guangzhou, to which Guangzhou vice mayor Cai Chaolin responded, saying that innovation is deeply imbedded in local culture.

        When asked about Guangzhou’s economic transformation and upgradation during the 13^th Five Year Plan, Cai answered that to further develop service industry, people needed to be open minded. He explained that Guangzhou now shifted scientific achievements to surrounding areas, which not only brings benefits to surrounding areas, because “serving others is beneficial to oneself”.

Recommend Guangzhou

       Vice mayor began this forum by introducing Guangzhou as “energetic city with time-honored history”, a city of delicious foods and entertainments, and also a place suitable for living, working and traveling, reasons are as following:

       Guangzhou is 2230 years old, it has been China’s first-tier city, whose traditions of openness, inclusiveness and innovation keep this city energetic.

       Cai Chaolin recommended Cantonese cuisine, morning tea, history and modern cities born of Pearl River to CEOs.

       Guangzhou’s GDP rose by 10.1% since the 12^th Five Year Plan, keeping an overall good momentum. Last year, Guangzhou’s tertiary industry accounted for 66.77%, closing to that in developed country, besides, Guangzhou has been elected as “best commercial city” by Forbes for 5 consecutive years in the past 6 years.

      As for Guangzhou’s housing price, Cai Chaolin said that people of different consumption level can afford houses, as houses in surrounding areas reach 10,000RMB per centiare, and those in core areas reach 50,000 RMB per centiere.

Guangzhou’s Innovation Approaches

Innovation is deeply imbedded in local culture, and it intrigues wide attention.

According to Cai, Guangzhou’s innovation reflected in pilot project of free trade zone at national level, innovative platform of Pazhou Internet Cluster, and preferential policies to creative talents.

He took Pazhou Internet Cluster as an example. This 2 square kilometers land attracted the most well-known internet corporations such as Alibaba, Tencent, MIUI, Fosun, Vipshop. “Three years from now on, this zone will gather 100,000 high-tech and internet personnels.” said Cai.

Guangzhou’s innovation also can be seen in government’s reform and optimizing of business environment. A responsible and innovative government, by letting market runs itself, can establish an international business environment that is convenient and legal.

Development of Service Industry

CEOs are interested about the development of service industry in Guangzhou during the 13^th Five Year Plan.

Cai expected service industry would account for 70% of GDP, and modern and high-end services account for 70% of service industry. To this end, Guangzhou must be open-minded, to know who are the targets of its services.

As an important central city approved by State Council, Guangzhou now shifted scientific achievements to surrounding areas, which seemed to lead to GDP loss, but peripheral provinces and cities contributed to Guangzhou’s economic development As Cai commended, “serving others is beneficial to oneself”.

In terms of increasing proportion of service industry in GDP and transforming economic structure, local government is finding ways to innovate concepts and measures in service industry.

Building Smart City

“What is a smart city?” asked one of the executive leaders from transnational enterprise.

Cai believed that a smart city has two important factors, legal person and natural person. The former includes enterprises and organizations, while the latter includes citizens, travelers and temporary residents. Building smart cities aims to provide these two “persons” with convenient, productive, cost-saving life.

In this process, government needs to play its role for top-level design and promotion, and to set up government-leading platform for public service.

A smart city would allow enterprise’s legal person to mange serious business through public service platform, and a smart city would use figure print or face to identify a person, just as an identity card, and a smart city would allow its citizens to pay through not only cash but also ATM cards.