HAIKOU /China/, February 17. /TASS/. The Yazhouwan Innovation Development Zone in Sanya city on the south coast of Hainan Island will form a developed industrial complex based on close cooperation between research organizations and the industrial sector, the Hainan Daily reported.
According to the newspaper, the authorities plan to form such an advanced cluster to practically use the latest achievements in the field of selective seed breeding and genetics. Relevant issues were brought up for discussion by representatives of the business and scientific community during a symposium held in Sanya, dedicated to the tasks of accelerating the formation of the so-called breeding Silicon Valley in Hainan.
"The science city is rapidly growing and constantly transforming, while at the same time making active efforts to successfully develop breeding and maintain dynamic industry growth," Zhang Yanqiu, head of the China Seed Association, said at the conference.
According to the official, the Yazhouwan Affairs Office pays great attention to issues related to establishing effective cooperation mechanisms between scientific laboratories and research centers, agrarian farms, service industries and manufacturing companies. Symposium participants noted that this year the science city administration will have to solve a number of new problems related to resource allocation and licensing.
The Science City Administration commented that project preparation and approval in Sanya's Innovation Development Zone is quicker than in other regions of the PRC. The recently opened center for protection of intellectual property rights in Yazhouwan, which has reduced the time for granting patents for inventions from 20 to three months, and licenses for practical applications from nine months to 15 days, has played a significant a role in this. The cluster is home to 415 seed companies, four advanced breeding organizations, and branches of 12 colleges and universities, which are expected to become a solid foundation for Hainan's long-term dynamic growth.
Yazhouwan is located on the coast of the South China Sea and is considered an important strategic site, the main objective of which is to stimulate rapid development of Hainan's free trade port. The area allocated for science-intensive enterprises and other infrastructure exceeds 26 square kilometers. The organizations located in the science city are engaged in projects in breeding and modern agriculture, deep-sea research, astronautics, network technology, medicine, and finance.