Tangshan High-tech Industrial Zone was established in April 1992 with the approval of the People's Government of Hebei Province. Approved by the State Council, it was upgraded as a National High-tech Industrial Development Zone on November 29, 2010. It has an administrative jurisdiction area of 101.3 square kilometers and a population of 224,000.
Home to 778 enterprises, the zone has the six major industries of welding, robots, auto parts, new materials and new building materials, intelligent instruments and meters, and biomedicine. A number of strategic emerging industries are on the rise. The zone has attracted investors from various countries and regions like Japan, France, Britain and Germany, and has 79 foreign-funded enterprises.
Since the establishment of the zone, its GDP increased from 30.3 million yuan ($4.42 million) in 1992 to 12.4 billion yuan in 2016, an average annual growth rate of 28.5 percent. Fiscal revenue increased from 503,000 yuan in 1993 to 2.62 billion yuan in 2016, an average annual increase of 45.1 percent, and fixed asset investment increased from 37.81 million yuan in 1996 to 8.8 billion yuan in 2016, an average annual growth rate of 31.2 percent.
The zone has gathered more than 50 percent of the high-tech enterprises and 90 percent of the software enterprises in the city. It has built up innovative and entrepreneurial platforms, such as national high-tech innovation centers, returned overseas personnel innovation parks, university science parks and software parks. The zone has a welding industrial base of under the Torch Program that ranks first in China and sixth in the world. It also has a national robot industrial base approved by the Ministry of Science and Technology.
At present, Tangshan High-tech Industrial Zone, focusing on reform and innovation, is projected to see a revenue of 100 billion yuan in 2020.