Shanghai Daily news

Fengxian District has set up a 3-square-kilometer area to build its optic and electronic industries.
The optic and electronic tools, including sensors, robots and digital signal processing chips, are used to automate labor-intensive manufacturing industries.
"The city needs to develop electronic and optic technologies to reduce pollution, cut energy costs and raise its production efficiency," said Xiao Huwei of Institute of Scientific and Technological Information of Shanghai in a recent report.
According to his report, automated industrial chains or robot-dominated procedures are already popular in developed countries like the United States, Germany and Japan.
China has a long way to go to narrow the gap with the developed countries. China is currently home to less than 1 percent of the industrial robots used in the world.
With the city's manufacturing industry accounting for about 50 percent of its gross domestic product, Shanghai should follow Guangdong, Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces to fully develop its electronic and optic industrial potential, according to Xiao.
The city's modern tool producers will assemble in the Comprehensive Industrial Zone of Fengxian District, where an electronic and optic manufacturing chain will be set up.
The district has a long tradition in the electric transmission and distribution industry. Its industrial output has accounted for 10 percent of the district's total.
"Despite strong backing from traditional industries, which can provide us automatic equipment like transformers, we need to introduce more advanced technologies from multinational companies," said Zhang Yiming, vice director of the district's economic commission.
In addition to Pioneer Corp, which has settled in the zone to develop its information storage industry, the district is also in talks with several multinational companies, like Siemens AG.
However, the zone does not only offer land to big companies, it also attracts domestic companies and academic research centers to develop the city's own technologies.
China Putian Corp, an information technology provider in the telecommunication sector, is setting up an information park in the zone. At the same time, universities with related research programs have also been attracted to the district.
Among those universities, the prestigious Jiao Tong University will move its robot research center to the district.
Meanwhile, the zone has attracted a national research program to develop electric engines for buses, which can greatly reduce the pollution caused by the internal combustion engines.
The technology has been tested in sightseeing buses in Pudong Century Park and will be spread to all of the city's buses in several years' time.
Many of the optic and electronic technologies developed in the zone will be used in the city's automobile, power, oil, chemical and steel industries.