The Guangdong provincial capital is expecting Sino-foreign co-operation to play a bigger part in the city's development of biomedicine in the years ahead.
Chen Rugui, executive deputy mayor of Guangzhou, said his government is doing what it can to help attract overseas companies and research institutes to set up production facilities and research and development centers in the southern metropolis in the coming years.
"We will offer special preferential policies to offshore companies when they establish their production facilities and R&D centers in Guangzhou," Chen told the Roundtable for Global Biopharmaceutical and Health Industry Development in Guangzhou on Tuesday.
More than 100 senior officials, researchers and business representatives from China, the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Russia and Denmark attended the conference. "The city government is expecting to attract more big-name foreign companies and research institutes to join hands in developing Guangzhou's biopharmaceutical industry which has become a pillar sector," Chen said.
According to Chen, Guangzhou has invested more than 500 million yuan ($78.13 million) to support the production and development of new medicines and medical instruments in recent years.
Guangzhou earned more than 150 billion yuan from its biological and health industries in 2014, coming first in the Chinese mainland.
Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Holdings Ltd, whose annual income is more than 65 billion yuan, has been the biggest pharmaceutical plant in the mainland for several years.
On Monday, Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Holdings Ltd respectively signed contracts with Guangdong-Macao Traditional Chinese Medicine Technological Park Development Co. Ltd and the University of Macao to set up a production base in Zhuhai's Hengqin island.
In addition to producing medicines, the new facility will also be an R&D center for traditional Chinese medicines and be responsible for promoting traditional Chinese medicines abroad.
