Wang Jumeng | Accelerate the Development of Chongqing’s Design Industry and Promote the Creation of a City of Design

Wang Jumeng, female, Han nationality, born in Yantai, Shandong Province, with a postgraduate degree in Master of Business Administration, started to work in 1982 and is currently Secretary of the Party Committee and president of Chongqing Yuelai Investment Group Co., Ltd.

In recent years, Wang Jumeng has actively promoted the innovative development of Chongqing’s design industry; closely linked with the industrial demand for the high-quality development of the city’s manufacturing industry; promoted the launch of the Action Plan for Building a City of Design; actively planned the construction of Chongqing Design Park; taken the lead to introduce a group of internationally influential design enterprises and institutions such as Shenzhen ND, Lay-out, Taihuoniao, Liu Guanzhong Industrial Design Research Offices, Deng Wenzhong Studio, etc.; introduced Sichuan Fine Arts Institute to build an international design institute in Yuelai; planned and implemented China Manufacturing Design Conference and Yuelai International Design Forum, Exhibition of Chongqing Industrial Design Innovation Achievement, Chongqing Design Biennale, etc.; promoted Yuelai to create World Green Design Park and Automobile Design Capital, and helped create Chongqing into a City of Design.

Q1: In your view, what opportunities and challenges is Chongqing facing in developing the industrial design industry?

Wang Jumeng: Industrial design is at the top of the manufacturing industry chain. Chongqing, as an important modern manufacturing base in China, owns complete industrial categories and a solid industrial foundation and is fertile land for the development of industrial design. Chongqing takes the opportunity of creating a City of Design, endeavors to develop the industrial design and intelligent design industries, and innovate and upgrade the manufacturing industry. Those efforts are specific demonstrations to implement the spirit of a series of instructions and comments that President Xi has made to Chongqing, specific measures to assist Chongqing to create a City of Design, and specific practices of design empowering economy.

The data shows that Chongqing has built 10 national and 101 municipal industrial design centers. In the first three quarters of 2021, the sales revenue of Chongqing’s two-level industrial design centers exceeded 190 billion yuan, increasing by 26.6% year-on-year, and the number of employees reached more than 7,000. In October 2021, Chongqing was selected as the first four industrial design characteristic model cities (districts) in the country announced by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, with a good atmosphere of industrial design development.

However, overall, the development of the design industry in Chongqing is still in the initial stage, with gaps still existing in platform influence, market vitality, policy environment, and other aspects, and there is still a distance from creating a City of Design. In particular, the linkage between policy system and development, the construction of carrier platforms for industrial agglomeration, the scale of market players and the quality of development need to be strengthened.

 

Q2: As an exhibition platform open to the outside world, what advantages does Yuelai International Exhibition City have in developing the design industry?

Wang Jumeng: Yuelai International Exhibition City is the core platform for the development and opening up of Chongqing Liangjiang New Area, the core display for the construction of Chongqing Smart City, and the core support to construct Chongqing into a celebrated inland international convention and exhibition city. Yuelai has unique advantages in developing the industrial design industry.

The first is the unique advantage of locational synergy. Yuelai International Exhibition City is 8 km away from Jiangbei International Airport, 10 km from Chongqing North Railway Station, 25 km from Chongqing Railway Freight Marshalling Station, 11 km from Harbor Functional Area of Free Trade Zone and 15 km from Guoyuan Port. Also within the half-hour radiation circle of the airport, railway port and water port, Yuelai is an important area with a multi-dimensional rapid transportation capacity of water, land and air. It is a significant functional plate to construct a high-quality development-leading district and high-quality life model district in Chongqing Liangjiang New Area, and a crucial part of constructing the Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle. The advantage of locational synergy is obvious. To vigorously develop Yuelai industrial design industry has excellent industrial radiation driving advantage and spillover space.

The second is unique industrial advantages. Chongqing is an important modern manufacturing base in China, with complete industrial categories, the world’s largest electronic information industry cluster and the largest automobile industry cluster in China. It has clout around the country, especially in the fields of automobile, motorcycle, new electronic materials, equipment manufacturing and others. Liangjiang New Area is the city’s highland of advanced manufacturing industry development, where gather the city’s nationally influential industries of equipment manufacturing, electronic information, intelligent manufacturing, medical equipment, etc. The strong manufacturing basis of our city and Liangjiang New Area provides a solid industrial foundation and broad market prospects for Yuelai to develop the industrial design industry.

The third is the unique advantage of the exhibition platform. The exhibition is a gathering platform for leading enterprises, advanced ideas, cutting-edge technologies and innovative products, with the resource superiority of the most advanced industrial design and product information. Since 2013, all exhibitions above the scale of the city have been held in Yuelai International Exhibition City, which highlights the strong driving force of Yuelai bringing together the city’s people, logistics, information and capital flow. Relying on the strong ability of the exhibition platform to gather factors, the development of “Exhibition + Design” will effectively amplify the function of radiating, driving and leading in the design industry, achieve the linkage upgrade of the two industries of exhibition and design, and provide strong momentum to build the city into a celebrated inland international exhibition city and a City of Design. The fourth is the unique advantage of human resources. Design talent resources are the intellectual guarantee for the development of the design industry. Sichuan Fine Arts Institute Yuelai campus settled in Yuelai International Exhibition City, which provides sufficient design talents and continuous creative power for Yuelai to develop the industrial design industry. High-quality educational resources from colleges and universities provide a good growth platform for training industrial design talents. In the future, Yuelai International Exhibition City will be an important highland and a key platform for the training and transportation of design talents in the city.

Q3: What is the development plan and goal of Chongqing Design Park?

Wang Jumeng: The 18.67 square kilometer area of Yuelai International Exhibition City is a design park. We divide it into four functional areas, namely design innovation incubation plate (core function), design talent training plate, design display and release plate, design trading and life service plate, focusing on automobile design, intelligent hardware design, medical device design, life aesthetics design, environmental design, animation design, artificial intelligence, 3D printing and other eight subdivisions. By 2030, the total business income of Chongqing Design Park will reach 10 billion yuan, contributing 1 billion yuan of tax, settling 300 enterprises, gathering 10,000 employees, cultivating 1 national industrial design research institute, 1 national industrial design museum, 10 national industrial design centers and 30 municipal industrial design centers.

In terms of the operation system, we have built three operating systems — design platform, industrial ecology and park service. Among them, the design platform system combines the layout characteristics of the industrial design industry and will build a digital and intelligent design industry public service platform in Chongqing Design Park to promote the open sharing of design resources, which includes Chongqing Yuan · Design and Research Institute, Design Exchange, Incubation Base for Design Innovation Brand, Talent Training Base, Industrial Communication and Cooperation Platform, Collaborative Intelligent Manufacturing Center, CMF center (material center) and other contents. The industrial ecosystem has built a “Design +” ecosystem to facilitate the in-depth integration of industrial design and related industries, to promote the coordinated development of a City of Design in the “1+N” industry, and to attract domestic and foreign superior resources to gather in the design park. The park service system focuses on the development needs of the settled enterprises and will provide investment promotion services, investment and financing services, incubation services, policy services, life services, property services and other all-around big-data management and intelligent comprehensive supporting public services.

Q4: Industrial agglomeration and development cannot be separated from the high-quality carrier platform, so what kind of suggestions do you have in this regard?

Wang Jumeng: I suggest that our city accelerate the formation of the “1+N” coordinated development industrial layout with Chongqing Design Park in Liangjiang New Area as the core bearing place and Shapingba, Yuzhong, Banan and many other district and county parks as the support.

Among them, “1” refers to taking Chongqing Design Park, located in Yuelai International Exhibition City, Liangjiang New Area, as the core carrier of industrial design development, embracing the industrial design field, gathering development experience and top design innovation resources from developed design regions around the world, promoting the integrated development of industrial design and manufacturing industry, driving the industrialization of industrial design results, and building an “Industrial Design + Industry Chain” design enterprise gathering, excellent design production base, design talent training base, design product display, design information release.

“N” refers to Chongqing Industrial Design Headquarters Base in Yuzhong District, Chongqing Industrial Design City in Shapingba District, Chongqing Industrial Design Park in Banan District, as well as a national new district, national economic and technological development Zone, high-tech development zone, comprehensive bonded zone and other characteristic parks for the development of design industry. Design industry clusters featuring advertising design, product design, architectural design, intelligent design, fashion design and cultural creativity will be built respectively to form a new pattern of coordinated development of the design industry with distinctive features, cooperation, and complementarity.

Q5: To develop the design industry needs to deal with the relationship between an effective market and a successful government. What are your thoughts and suggestions on this?

Wang Jumeng: From the perspective of market players, it is necessary to strengthen market players, accelerate the construction of national and municipal industrial design centers in our city, improve the layout of industrial design research institutes, and vigorously introduce well-known industrial design leading enterprises at home and abroad. For example, focusing on the advantages and pillar industries, various institutions are encouraged to jointly establish industrial design and research institutes, and create national industrial design and research institutes based on the best. It is essential to accelerate the cultivation of professional design enterprises, to cultivate and introduce several well-known industrial design enterprises at home and abroad with a strong driving force and great influence, and to guide qualified leading enterprises to separate research and development design institutions and set up independently operated design companies. We should also support the development of various small and micro enterprises such as design studios, cultivate many industrial design enterprises with obvious characteristics and outstanding services, and build a leading industrial design service brand in China, encourage design enterprises to participate in the selection of well-known domestic and foreign awards such as iF Design Award and Red Dot Design Award, encourage and support design enterprises to increase R&D investment and talent introduction, to innovate the incentive mechanism for the growth of industrial design talents, and to support the inclusion of industrial design talents in the scope of high-level talent training and selection.

From the perspective of the government, it is necessary to focus on the policy system and linkage development, to strengthen policy guidance, and with the coordination of the municipal and district government, to launch a series of policies and measures to promote the development of the industrial design industry, and to support the development of the city’s design enterprises. Specifically, it can focus on key areas and directions such as the cultivation of industrial design subjects, capacity improvement, platform and park construction, talent training, brand activities, and atmosphere creation to introduce two-level support policies, forming a municipal and district linkage-supporting mechanism, and exploring relying on state-owned or state-holding companies to attract social capital to cooperate in setting up a design industry development fund, guiding and supporting social capital to enter the field of industrial design venture investment, and supporting qualified design enterprises to go public for financing.

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