Nurturing new startups in Xi'an (2)

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“We’re not close to the ocean. We don’t have as many students in Western graduate schools as Beijing or Shanghai.

“And we don’t yet have as many of the coastal cities’ conveniences. We can only compete with them for talented people by offering a good work environment and good services,” she said.

“And as it turns out, we’ve always been among the country’s top echelon (of pioneering parks).”

The Xi’an pioneering park is known for a number of special things it offers.

One is a long-standing “entrepreneurial mentor program” in which more experienced entrepreneurs and financial service professionals are invited to give weekly tutorial sessions for the younger, less experienced leaders of business ventures.

Another is the so-called “financial supermarket,” in which administrators of the pioneering park help resident companies review the profiles of banks and smaller financial service institutions, features of their products and case studies of companies using the products.

“As Xi’an is a landlocked city, its surrounding environment used to be very traditional,” Yan said.

“We have a fear that companies based here — not always well-informed small and medium-sized ones in particular — may have missed things in the modern market economy that they could have utilized to achieve faster and better growth. It is part of our job to make sure that would not happen.”

Direct incentives are also important, of course.

With funds funneled from the XHTZ, the pioneering park has maintained a budget of 50 million yuan (around $8 million) to attract experienced senior managers and R&D directors.

Newly arrived graduate-entrepreneurs are eligible to apply for up to 100,000 yuan in various kinds of subsidies covering rent, intellectual property applications, publicity costs and interest on loans.

For the potentially most competitive projects, the rent subsidy can last as long as five years.

Yan said that by and large she is proud of the results the pioneering park has achieved.

Of its “graduates”, 20 companies can each report up to 100 million yuan or more in annual sales.

“Large revenue is only one aspect,” she hastened to add. “We have also had quite a few hidden champions or little giants in specific industries. They may not make ever-increasing sales, but their positions in the market are truly solid.”

The “little giants” include companies making laser components sold worldwide, chips for the Beidou system — the Chinese equivalent to GPS — and precision tools and equipment.

The pioneering park has contributed not only mature businesses and their revenues and tax payments, but is also a key component of XHTZ’s cultural fusion.

Local officials said the park has gathered some 1,000 foreign passport holders and 2,600 people who have studied abroad, 900 of them owners of their own companies.

Administrators said that in the last few years about 60 new companies have set up by graduates who returned from abroad.

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