A workshop at Shenzhen Science and Technology Co., Ltd. (CHEN XUESI)

The development of Shenzhen's high-tech industry has the following major characteristics:

- Swift development of pillar industries and core products. Electronics and information, biological engineering, new materials and mechatronic industries have all developed rapidly. The major products of the electronics and information industry, in particular, have reached advanced national levels in terms of both output and technical level. Shenzhen is currently a major production base of computer and telecommunications equipment in China. The output value of the electronics and information industry totaled 74 billion yuan in 1999, making up 90.4 percent of the entire high-tech industry.

- Growing proportion of products with independent intellectual property rights. A number of mainline enterprises with independent intellectual property rights have emerged in Shenzhen's high-tech sector. They have produced a batch of new and high-tech products such as program-controlled exchanges with a switching capacity of 10,000 lines, SDH transmission system, GSM system, cellular phones, high-property batteries, organic silicon materials and gamma scalpel. Last year, the output value of high-tech products with independent intellectual property rights amounted to 38.336 billion yuan, accounting for 46.76 percent of the total of the high-tech industry.

- Rapid expansion of non-public enterprises. About 10 percent of Shenzhen's technology-based enterprises are set up by Chinese experts, scholars or students returned from abroad. In 1999, the non-public sector contributed 22 percent of the total output value of the city's high-tech industry.

- Initial formation of an enterprise-based research and development (R&D) system. Currently, Shenzhen has a total of 727 technological development institutions, with 679, or 93.4 percent, affiliated with various enterprises. These enterprises employ 90 percent of the city's R&D personnel and provide 90 percent of the total R&D funds.

- Constant innovations in enterprise operating mechanism. Shenzhen has boldly carried out reforms to diversify enterprise equity, promote the transformation of intellectual property rights into equity, and make production factors profitable. It has established a series of systems encouraging innovation, including the technical equity system, technical employee shareholder system, technical innovation award system and the annual wage system for SOE managers. As a result, an enterprise operating mechanism favorable to the development of the high-tech industry has initially taken shape.

Shenzhen was the first city in the country to set up a stock exchange (WU MING)

In the development of the high-tech industry, Shenzhen has effectively taken its cue from the government. In 1998, the city promulgated the Rules on Promoting the Development of the High-Tech Industry, which was revised in September 1999. The formulation and completion of related regulations has helped form a legal environment, facilitating the protection of intellectual property rights.