Shishi Forms Seven Pillar Industries, with Printing and Packaging in the Mix

Shishi City has placed structural adjustment, upgrading and transformation at the center of its economic agenda, accelerating the shift in its development model and advancing a modern urban economy. Today, it has built a modern industrial system led by textiles and apparel, with footwear and shoe materials, printing and packaging, hardware and machinery, sporting goods, food and beverage, and electronic information forming its seven pillar industries.

At the same time, a modern service system anchored by commerce and logistics, port transportation and tourism shopping has taken shape. Cluster-based, large-scale industrial development is now largely established, providing solid support for Shishi’s modern urban economy.

Given its limited land area, Shishi has chosen to upgrade traditional industries such as textiles and apparel with advanced, applicable technologies while using land intensively to develop high-tech industries, aiming to improve the quality and efficiency of industrial operations. Xu Weize, Secretary of the Shishi Municipal Party Committee, said that to expand space for industrial carriers, the city has followed the principle of “industries into parks, residents into communities, commerce into urban districts” and carried out large-scale integration of industrial parks. It is building modern urban industrial parks equipped with business services, living services, leisure and entertainment functions. This has created a new pattern of coordinated development involving the national-level Quanzhou High-tech Industrial Development Zone, the Taiwan-investment park, Baogai Footwear Industrial Park and other key industrial parks, helping capital, technology and talent cluster and allocate more efficiently. To help more enterprises reach scale and higher standards, Shishi has prioritized technological upgrading, listing and brand building. Corporate awareness of branding, public listing and innovation has continued to rise, producing a group of competitive brand-name and large-scale enterprises, including companies with output value above RMB 100 million, as well as China Well-known Trademarks, China Top Brand Products, China Export Famous Brands, provincial famous trademarks, large listed enterprises and listing candidates. The city is also accelerating industrial transformation and upgrading, focusing on high-tech sectors such as electronic information, optoelectronics, bioengineering and marine technology, as well as emerging industries that support apparel, and it now has national-level high-tech enterprises.

Drawing on a sound business environment and existing industrial strengths, Shishi is accelerating the development of eight specialized markets covering apparel, fabrics, accessories, steel, machinery, food, aquatic products, and home building materials, with the aim of creating large-scale, specialized regional trade and procurement centers. Mayor Huang Nankang told our reporter that Shishi is focusing on high-end modern services such as business exhibitions, modern logistics, finance and insurance, leisure tourism, intermediary services and cultural creativity. It is also developing new urban-economy formats with local characteristics, including headquarters economy and building economy, pushing services from traditional to modern, from consumer-oriented to producer-oriented, and from serving the local region to serving customers beyond it, thereby boosting the overall prosperity of tertiary-industry services.

In port development, a berth at Shihu Wharf has been completed and put into use, while a 10,000-ton berth is under accelerated construction. Port-side industries are growing rapidly, with five distinctive pillar clusters already taking shape: port warehousing and logistics, fine chemicals, electronic technology, textiles and apparel, and hardware and machinery. A number of modern logistics projects are being built at a faster pace, becoming new growth points for Shishi’s economy.