Shenzhen issued guidelines yesterday on developing strategic emerging industrial clusters and fostering future industries that will be the backbone of the city’s industrial and technological revolutions.

Under the orientation document, Shenzhen will focus on developing 20 globally competitive strategic emerging industrial clusters and fostering eight future industries to gain an edge in these industries.

In 2021, the added value of Shenzhen’s strategic emerging industries reached 1.12 trillion yuan (US$168.67 billion), accounting for 38.6% of the city’s GDP, Shenzhen Deputy Mayor Huang Min said at a press conference in April this year.

Shenzhen has set a target to increase the added value of strategic emerging industries to over 1.5 trillion yuan by 2025, as per the guideline.

The city also aims to cultivate a number of high-quality enterprises that will be the leading force of their industrial ecology, advance breakthroughs in a number of key and core technologies, and construct a batch of modern advanced manufacturing parks and world-class “lighthouse factories.”

To ensure a sufficient supply of land for strategic emerging industries, Shenzhen plans to build 20 advanced manufacturing parks with a total area of over 300 square kilometers in Bao’an, Guangming, Longhua, Longgang and Pingshan districts and Shenshan Special Cooperation Zone.

The city will improve its market entity cultivation system, explore diversified and specialized financial support for strategic emerging industries’ development, beef up technological and talent support for these industrial clusters, and formulate action plans for developing strategic emerging industrial clusters and future industries.

The 20 strategic emerging industrial clusters cover such fields as network and communications, semiconductors and integrated circuits, ultra-high-definition video display, intelligent terminals, smart sensors, software and information services, digital creativity, fashion, machine tools, intelligent robotics and laser additive manufacturing.

The eight major development directions for future industries identified include synthetic biology, blockchain, cells and genes, aerospace technologies, neuroscience and brain-inspired intelligence, underground and deep water explorations, visible light communication and optical computing, and quantum information.

“The guidelines not only consider the present, but are also far-sighted. They reflect national strategies, Shenzhen’s responsibilities, and the rule of industrial development,” said Guo Wanda, executive vice president of China Development Institute. “They also carry the major task and goal of making Shenzhen competitive in the long term.”