Growing with Our Investors—TEDA Takes Great Strides with GDP Crossing the 100-Bln Threshold (2005-2009) (Part II)

In 2006, as the development and opening-up of the Tianjin Binhai New Area upgraded into a national development strategy, TEDA seized this precious opportunity. Just two years later, TEDA witnessed its GDP cross the 100-billion-yuan threshold for the first time, a significant leap in economic growth. During 2005-2009, a number of heavyweight projects settled in TEDA, including Otis Elevator TEDA Base, Great Wall Motors Tianjin Manufacturing Base, the world’s largest integrated wind power manufacturing base of Vestas, and China’s next-gen carrier rocket industrialization base. Meanwhile, TEDA introduced high-level innovation platforms such as the National SuperComputer Center in Tianjin and the Tianjin International Joint Academy of Biomedicine. These investors and institutions effectively boosted TEDA’s high-quality development.

“Our vision is to allow people to connect and thrive in a taller, faster, smarter world. I can’t think of a better place to do that than in Tianjin,” said Judy Marks, Chair, Chief Executive Officer, and President of Otis Worldwide Corporation during an interview as the group celebrated the 40th anniversary of its operations in China. 

In 1984, Otis established a joint venture with the Tianjin Elevator Factory. It was one of the earliest foreign investors to enter China. With Tianjin as the launching pad of its business in the country, Otis started its journey on the Chinese market since then. In 2007, the TEDA Base of Otis Elevators became operational. With TEDA’s convenient location and favorable industry environment, the base has kept increasing its production capacity as well as intelligence and digitalization level. It has now developed into Otis’ largest elevator and only high-speed elevator manufacturing base globally, and a key global manufacturing facility for traction machines, which are core components of elevators. Elevators rolled out here are distributed nationwide and exported to over 110 countries and regions.

Looking back on Otis’ growth in Tianjin, Judy Marks highlighted Tianjin’s favorable environment for enterprises to grow. “We entered China in 1984 when China originally opened up. We settled here in Tianjin and in TEDA because of the availability of quality, skilled people. And it allowed us to start. As China is emerging, Otis China had the opportunity to emerge.”

Otis has been growing alongside TEDA over the past 40 years. The foreign investor has been dedicated to expanding its business in China and is now operating four companies in TEDA. It decided in 2023 to establish its North China R&D Center here. The Center brought R&D closer to manufacturing and accelerated the transition of new design into new products. As a result, Otis’ operations in TEDA now cover the full elevator industrial chain from investment, R&D and manufacturing to sales, installation, service and testing, giving a strong boost to relevant industries in the area. “The TEDA Base of Otis Elevators has become the hub of the elevator industrial chain in North China. It shares the most advanced management practices with suppliers. Over 80 upstream and downstream partners along the supply chain have benefited from the base,” said Chen Kang, Chairman and President of Otis Elevator (China) Co., Ltd.

Tianjin is the starting point for Otis in China, where it offers services to the rest of the world. Otis can be a microcosm of foreign-invested enterprises achieving success in Tianjin. “Tianjin has been our home to us while we expanded across all over China, Tianjin is home. TEDA has been home,” said Judy Marks. Looking ahead, Otis plans to deepen its presence in Tianjin. It will put more efforts into investments in intelligent manufacturing and the industrialization of R&D achievements to position its TEDA base as Otis’ global flagship.

Vestas, a global leader in onshore wind power, has a shared vision of green development with TEDA. After it settled here, the two parties have offered strong support to each other to achieve win-win results.

Breaking ground in TEDA in 2005, Vestas Tianjin Manufacturing Base began operations four years later. This project represents Vestas’ most significant investment in the Chinese market. The Tianjin facility serves as Vestas’ largest integrated wind power manufacturing base globally, and is comprised of the production of nacelles, blades, generators, control systems, and mechanical components. It has not only increased Vestas’ production capacity and accelerated its localization in China but also introduced advanced equipment manufacturing technologies of wind power to TEDA to propel industrial development in the area. According to a person-in-charge from TEDA, “Since settling in TEDA in 2005, Vestas Tianjin Base has been working in active cooperation with TEDA in areas such as new energy development, technological innovation, and project expansion. By keeping on increasing investments in capital, technology, and talent, Vestas has become a crucial part of TEDA’s industrial chains spanning new materials, new energy, and environmental protection.”

Thanks to TEDA’s diverse industrial ecosystem and quality manufacturing environment, Vestas has flourished here and continued to deepen its root in China. In 2021, a new generator plant with an investment of approximately RMB 200 million opened in TEDA to produce components for Vestas’ world-leading 6 MW EnVentus™ wind turbine platform. “The inauguration and opening of Vestas once again reflects Vestas’ firm confidence in rooting in China,” said Thomas Keller, Senior Vice President of Vestas Group and President of Vestas China.

Today, generators produced at the Tianjin base account for 75% of Vestas’ global generator supply. In TEDA, Vestas has found a thriving environment to work hand in hand with TEDA to advance its green development.

TEDA entered a period of unprecedented growth in the first decade of this century as foreign investors established increasing heavyweight projects. Yet throughout its development, TEDA remained clear-eyed and never stopped identifying new economic engines. State-owned, private, and foreign capital were boosted in parallel while influential initiatives of “Made in China” and “Created in China” with great growth potential were introduced to the area and fostered here.

It was just then that Great Wall Motors was searching for a new site in TEDA. In the first visit to TEDA Administrative Commission made by Wei Jianjun, Chairman of Great Wall Motor Co., Ltd., Wei expressed that GWM’s future orientation would be exporting vehicles. TEDA’s proximity to Tianjin Port, a unique geographical advantage, is a strong attraction. He was also satisfied with the fully-fledged automotive supply chain comprised of FAW Toyota and a number of auto component suppliers. Shortly after that visit, a cooperation agreement was signed between TEDA and GWM. GWM planned to set up its Tianjin manufacturing base in TEDA West. This investment marked a significant step for GWM to go international.

The Tianjin base started construction in 2009 and went into production in August 2011, as the first model Great Wall HAVAL H6 rolled off the production line. In March 2015 the 1 millionth car was rolled out at the base, and in December 2019 this output figure reached 3 million. Furthermore, GWM focused more on investing in and upgrading its Tianjin base and introducing new products to the base. In 2023, the GWM Tianjin Base introduced the NEV models, HAVAL Dargo 2nd-Gene and HAVAL Xiaolong, both of which have already entered mass production and are available on the market. “With excellent geographical advantages of Tianjin Binhai New Area, we have penetrated our markets of Russia, South Africa, Chile, and many other countries this year. The export business of our Tianjin base has been greatly expanded,” said Wang Xuefei, Deputy General Manager of GWM Tianjin Haval Branch.

“We have received generous support and assistance from Tianjin Municipal People’s Government, People’s Government of Binhai New Area, TEDA Administrative Commission, and other local governments at all levels. They provide favorable services including talent acquisition, employee residency, administrative approvals, government subsidies, and coordination with upstream and downstream partners,” Wang added. Today, GWM Tianjin Base has developed into a large comprehensive facility with four functional areas including a car-making plant, an auto components park, a logistics park, and a living area, where about 20,000 employees can work and live. Going forward, GWM Tianjin base will make more investments here and focus on new energy vehicles (NEVs) and intelligent connected vehicles (ICVs) to achieve sustainable development and inject new momentum into the industrial transformation and upgrading of TEDA’s automotive sector.

TEDA people had a clear sense that mastering core technologies is the precondition to delving deeper into the blue ocean of advanced manufacturing. In this context, TEDA was committed to enhancing its innovation capabilities as the National SuperComputer Center in Tianjin (NSCC-TJ), the Tianjin International Joint Academy of Biomedicine (TJAB), and other large innovation platforms were subsequently launched. These pillars have empowered the manufacturing industry in high-quality development.

In May 2009, the National SuperComputer Center in Tianjin was approved as China’s first national-level supercomputing center and settled in TEDA. Meng Xiangfei, Secretary of the Party Leadership Group and Chief Scientist of the Center, shared, “Supercomputing was a new concept for most areas at that time, and they felt hard to understand how supercomputing would promote industrial economies. TEDA was a hotspot for high-quality development with a solid industrial foundation and a forward vision for industrial planning. It foresaw the promising future of supercomputing empowering manufacturing. We all think of TEDA as the most compatible partner to work with and to implement the Center’s strategies.”

Since it settled in TEDA, the National SuperComputer Center in Tianjin has provided cutting-edge IT services, including high-performance computing, cloud computing, big data, and artificial intelligence, forming close partnerships with local enterprises. These technologies have successfully driven the transformation and upgrading of industries such as automotive, high-end equipment, and biomedicine, positioning the center as a technological powerhouse both in TEDA and in Tianjin.

Today, the National SuperComputer Center in Tianjin has grown into China’s most widely-used and highest-capacity supercomputing center, achieving breakthroughs from China’s first world-ranked No. 1 supercomputer “Tianhe-1A” to the fully self-developed Tianhe new-generation supercomputer. Everyday we see more than 15,000 computational tasks being performed, which are applied in serving nearly 6,000 users including research institutions, enterprises, and governments. The applications span biomedicine, genetic technology, aerospace, marine environment simulation, new materials, new energy, and brain science. All the cases fully show its significant role as a national heavyweight. Based on the center, TEDA developed the Tianhe Digital Industrial Park, where over 300 digital economy enterprises have registered. A digital industrial ecosystem supported by the combination of supercomputing, big data, and intelligent applications has been built in TEDA.

Coincidentally, the Tianjin International Joint Academy of Biomedicine exemplifies another national-level platform in empowering industrial development. In 2009, TJAB went into operation in TEDA as the first comprehensive national-level platform in biomedicine. It created a pioneering enterprise incubation model combining comprehensive professional platforms, maker spaces, and incubators. In the same year, Yu Xuefeng, founder of CanSino Biologics, returned to China and settled in the academy with his team to embark on their entrepreneurial journey in TEDA. “The Tianjin International Joint Academy of Biomedicine paved the way for CanSino’s success. It provided various platforms for analysis and testing and specialized service staff. They allowed entrepreneurs to be dedicated to research and development so that our success came a bit faster,” said Yu. Today, CanSino Biologics has grown from a single laboratory into a large enterprise that owns five core technology platforms, multiple key vaccine intellectual properties and technologies, and over 20 innovative vaccine R&D product pipelines.

During this whole process, the Tianjin International Joint Academy of Biomedicine has been devoted to optimizing the allocation of innovation resources in areas such as R&D services, enterprise incubation, project investment, and talent cultivation. It has established a comprehensive ecosystem for technology transfer, effectively bridging the last mile from scientific research to application and industrialization. By the end of 2023, TJAB had introduced and nurtured over 400 tech-driven enterprises in TEDA. Notable companies like CanSino Biologics, Dynamiker Biotechnology, and Cosychem were born here. It also attracted prominent pharmaceutical companies including Kelun Pharmaceutical, Disha Pharmaceutical, Minsheng Pharmaceutical, and Cisen Pharmaceutical to set up R&D centers in TEDA.

The introduction of innovative platforms such as the National SuperComputer Center in Tianjin and the Tianjin International Joint Academy of Biomedicine reflects TEDA’s deep understanding of regional development and tireless efforts in efficiently integrating innovation resources. TEDA fully leveraged these industry giants as propellers and innovation platforms as resources for technological innovation to inject momentum into industrial development. A brand-new industrial city with vitality and prosperity was moving forward.