Newsletter                     |                     Jul 1st, 2016 STORY OF THE MONTH   Inside Shenzhen：The Silicon Valley of hardware     Hax startup Trainerbot uses a robot to help train ping pong players     For the first documentary in WIRED's future cities series, we headed to Shenzhen – the frenetic heart of China's tech industry.   Originally a quiet agrarian province in southern China, Shenzhen's population exploded in the 80s and 90s as migrant workers came to work in the city's industrial factories. Many of the factories were founded through a drastic change in economic policy by party leaders in what is defined as the 'Shenzhen Special Economic Zone'.   Now a mega-metropolis with a population of up to 20 million, Shenzhen has become famous for creating consumer electronics – often imitations of premium brands – at a phenomenal pace.   "People have realised that if you go to Shenzhen to prototype hardware you can do that at ten times the speed you can anywhere else,” director Jim Demuth told WIRED.   Inside Huaqiangbei, the vast market district that's home to every imaginable smartphone part, Demuth found that part of that speed is due to the way component sellers collaborate with each other.   A screen repair shop owner might pass a broken iPhone to four or five different sellers, each with their own specialism – one removes the screen, another uses a steam press to attach the new display and so on before it makes its way back to the customer.   The £13 paid by the customer is then split by the repair shop owner between each retailer involved along the way. An egalitarian way of working that embodies the collaborative spirit of Shenzhen.   Shenzhen has become the factory of the world where, if you can think of an idea, you can find someone – or lots of people – to make it. Want 5,000 iPhones branded with your company logo? Easy.     Source: Wired （Read more）   SHENZHEN BUSINESS NEWS   Shenzhen joins race to be global hub for autonomous driving industry     Shenzhen is joining the race to become a global hub for the autonomous driving industry, with an industrial base focusing on self-driving technology to be launched next year in the city’s Nanshan district.   The project, with a total investment of 10 billion yuan planned through to 2020, is backed by the Shenzhen Front Investment Bank（SFIB）, a financial institution under the National School of Development at Peking University, one of the country’s top government think tanks in economic policy research. SFIB was established in January with the aim of funding projects and startups in cutting-edge technology industries.   The autonomous driving industrial base, the first project for SFIB, is also backed by the Investment Promotion Agency of the Ministry of Commerce, Bric Motor Corporation, and several other research and investment institutions, according to Wang Lejing, co-founder of SFIB.     Source：South China Morning Post （read more）     Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect likely to offer investors greater diversity     The long-anticipated Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect is likely to differentiate itself from the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect by drawing more hi-tech companies from the southern mainland city to raise capital from Hong Kong, according to a consultant.   Ringo Choi, EY’s Asia-Pacific IPO leader, believes the scheme, which is likely to be launched within this year, will be diverse for investors. “The scheme is expected to allow investors to trade on both bourses under a quota system,” he says.   “The Shenzhen bourse has far more technology companies and start-ups than Shanghai, which is dominated by large state-owned enterprises. The link will attract more investors and provide more choices for them. Furthermore, the upcoming Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect programme could attract the mainland’s next-generation hi-tech companies to go public and raise money in Hong Kong. The scheme will also raise the competitiveness of China’s overall capital market and consolidate Hong Kong’s position as an international financial centre.”   Edward Au, co-leader of national public offering group at Deloitte China, thinks the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect scheme will help reinforce education for investors of both markets.   Source：South China Morning Post （read more）     Shenzhen to become global driver of civilian drones     Apart from the well-recognized name DJI, more than 300 Shenzhen-based drone makers are expanding their territories around the world, making the city the hub of world's civilian unmanned aerial vehicle（UAV）.   "Shenzhen has become the distribution hub of the drone industry around the globe. Seventy percent of the world's civilian drone market share has been captured by the city, and more than 300 domestic manufacturers are working in the sector, generating more than 20 billion yuan（$3 billion）in sales," said a report in National Business Daily on Monday, citing Yang Jincai, director of Shenzhen UAV Industry Association（SZUAVIA）.   According to Yang, 90 percent of world's drone products, especially UAVs produced for civilian customers, are manufactured in Shenzhen and shipped around the globe.   Source：China Daily （read more）     'For Cities, It's Time for Action'：Shenzhen Forum Encourages Cities to Lead Battle Against Emissions     "For cities, it's time for action, not celebration."   This is what Paris Deputy Mayor Patrick Klugman told on the sidelines of the 4th Shenzhen International Low Carbon City Forum, emphasizing that cities should lead the battle in combatting emissions, SCMP reported.   "Cities are important because they can move quicker and go further than states," Klugman said.   Signed in Paris last December, the landmark climate change deal states that 195 countries agreed to set their own emission reduction goals. This is part of the global efforts to limit the rise of temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius.   Source：Yibada （read more）   SHENZHEN CIVIL LIFE   Shenzhen plans three new airports with international flights to city expected to double by 2020     Shenzhen is looking to build three new airports – one each for commercial airliners, seaplanes and helicopters – as part of plans to make it southern China’s transport hub.   However, the plan risks bringing even more underutilised airports into the Pearl River Delta.   The airports are part of a 1.4-trillion-yuan（HK$1.66 trillion）blueprint to shift the city’s development eastward. “Shenzhen will build the ‘One Belt, One Road’ transportation hub in southern China and study the plausibility of building an airport on water in the east as well as starting to plan a second airport in the east as soon as possible,” the Shenzhen government’s Eastward Shift Strategic Action Plan for 2016 to 2020 unveiled last month stated.   According to people with knowledge of the plan, a second Shenzhen airport was in the very early planning stages. The work was being carried out based on projected future demand when Shenzhen’s Baoan international airport reached full capacity. The airport – which handled 39.7 million passengers last year compared with 68.4 million in Hong Kong and 50 million in Guangzhou – is starting a 11.2-billion-yuan expansion plan to add a third runway and fourth terminal that could meet demand up to 2045.   Source: South China Morning Post （read more）     Why London’s Victoria & Albert Museum Is Launching an Outpost in China     Culture is big in China. And institutions from around the world want a piece of it. While many international art institutions have been actively building bridges with China in recent years, staging touring exhibitions to promote their names and collections, the first to plant roots in the vast country will be Britain’s Victoria & Albert Museum （V&A）.   China Merchants Shekou Holdings（CMSH）, a subsidiary of the state-owned China Merchants Group, is partnering with the V&A to create a 1 billion-yuan（US$152 million）new cultural space within its development project in Shekou, Shenzhen. The new institution, titled Design Society, will become part of the Sea World Culture and Arts Center（no relation to the American water park）, a hub spanning 70,000 square meters and set to open in 2017.   Under the current plan, the V&A is acting as a consultant on the development, and will take over one third of the hub, creating a 750-square-meter gallery where it will showcase its collection to a Chinese audience. While contemporary art galleries have opened in southern China with considerable frequency in recent years, the V&A’s first physical presence in the country will focus on design, showing everything from fashion, photography, and furniture to graphic design, theater, and performance.   Source： Artsy （read more）     Shenzhen to Build More International Schools as City Gears up for the Challenges of Globalization     Shenzhen will be the site of five or six more international schools by 2020, as part of the southeastern Chinese City's efforts to meet the demands of a growing international population.   This move is also geared towards the Shenzhen government's efforts to establish an international, modern, and innovative city, China Daily reported.   Official statistics show that more than 26,000 foreigners from 127 countries were living in Shenzhen as permanent residents in 2015, an increase of 7.2 percent from the previous year.   Japanese were the biggest group of foreign immigrants, followed by nationals from South Korea, the United States, India, and Canada.   Source：China Topix （read more）     Shenzhen opens "China's fastest metro line"     A metro connection between Shenzhen Bao'an International Airport and the Chinese high-speed rail network began operating on June 28 with the start of passenger services on Shenzhen metro Line 11.   The 51.9km 18-station line starts at Bitou near the administrative border with the neighbouring city of Dongguan and roughly follows the shoreline of the Zhujiang River estuary to serve airport Terminal 3 and Shenzhen Bay before terminating at an interchange with the Guangzhou - Shenzhen - Hong Kong Express Rail Link and metro lines 2 and 3 at Futian.   Shenzhen Metro claims Line 11 is China's fastest metro with trains reaching speeds of up to 120km/h, double the maximum operating speed on other parts of the network. The journey time to Futian is 55 minutes from Bitou and 29 minutes from the airport.   Source：International Railway Journal （read more）         NAROS UPDATE         NAROS attended Select LA International Investment Summit     As a member entity of the China Enterprise Council, the North American Representative Office of Shenzhen（NAROS）attended the 2016 SELECT LA Investment Summit with the CEC group.  Held on June 17th and 19th ,the summit is Southern California’s premier international trade event that brings together global investors with business and governmental leaders from Southern California to facilitate and secure foreign direct investment（FDI）, and gain exclusive insights on market trends and opportunities in the Los Angeles region.            Leaders from different social sectors are invited to make speeches, such as Jack Gao, head of Wanda’s Cultural Division; Marty Willhite, Legendary Entertainment’s general counsel and Eric Garcetti, City of LA mayor. The audience at SELECT LA is made up of over 400 domestic and international business leaders and investors, appointed government officials, C-suite executives, decision makers, along with professionals from the education, finance, media and civic sectors. At last year’s summit, international investors represented the countries of China and Hong Kong region, Korea, Japan and Mexico, and this year the audience has been expanded to also include the countries of the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Canada, etc.     Follow Us   Facebook   Email Company Info North American Representative Office of Shenzhen, China   35 N. Lake Ave, Suite 730  Pasadena, CA 91101   Contact Info www.shenzhenoffice.org   Phone：1（626）796-0088   Fax: 1（626）796-0688   Copyright © 2016 North American Representative Office of Shenzhen, P.R. China. All Rights Reserved.

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