The Songshan Lake International Innovation and Entrepreneurship Community in Dongguan city, Guangdong province has emerged as a new hub for innovative enterprises to settle down and grow. (COURTESY PHOTO)

By LONG Yuemei & CHEN Chunyou

The Songshan Lake International Innovation and Entrepreneurship Community, located in the Dongguan Songshan Lake High-tech Industrial Development Zone, Guangdong province in south China, has made notable progress in high-tech enterprise cultivation over the past few years. From less than 10 high-tech enterprises in 2020, the community had developed 116 by 2023.

The "Songhu Cup" Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition held at the end of 2023 attracted 48 sci-tech start-ups from across the country to settle in the zone, of which nearly one-fifth chose to settle in the community.

The reason behind the community's increased attraction to inbound enterprises is its enterprise-friendly services and policies.

With more than 200,000 industrial enterprises and world-class manufacturing industrial clusters in Dongguan, the community can provide complementary services and massive application scenarios for start-ups, along with a high product iteration efficiency, which makes it highly competitive in the market.

It also attracts upstream and downstream enterprises specializing in new materials and new energy. With targeted investment promotion, a vibrant cluster of industrial chains is taking shape in this sector.

Pooling technological innovation resources, the community has established the Dongguan electro-acoustic industry base, an advanced manufacturing innovation workshop and other supporting bases for enterprises' high-quality development.

In addition, the community offers comprehensive services for the whole cycle of enterprise development, from marketing and promotion to financial services, intellectual property rights and policy interpretation.

It welcomes support for inbound enterprises in terms of providing start-up funds and co-sharing instruments and equipment.

In January, the Dongguan Yuansheng Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. (Yuansheng), a provider of home care products for elders, won the Songshan Lake Angel Investment Fund. The fund has been established to gather talented individuals and innovative teams for the zone and support the development of start-ups and to date, has invested in 15 enterprises in the zone.

"Thanks to the financing, we will apply large model technology in home care and nursing scenarios," Deng Longsheng, founder of Yuansheng, said.

The community has become one of the most innovative resource-concentrated areas in the Pearl River Delta region, boasting 12 new R&D institutions, more than 200 R&D platforms and 5,000 research instruments. So far, it has attracted about 5,000 entrepreneurs and research talent.

The community strives to promote the growth of enterprises in the zone and cultivate a group of leading enterprises that can influence and stimulate the surrounding regions so that the zone can fulfill its role as a core engine driving high-quality development of Dongguan.