Guangdong, the most highly industrialised province in southern mainland China, wants to set up its own version of Silicon Valley.
The idea is to move the province up the economic value chain and away from low-skill, low-cost assembly or sub-assembly work.
If the project is successful, it could have implications for the global gaming equipment industry. Guangdong is already dotted with companies producing low-cost gaming machines for domestic play-for-prizes arcades. Several of the high quality mainstream equipment suppliers such as PacNet also have R&D facilities in Guangdong.
Last month, the National Development and Reform Commission announced plans to transform Guangdong and neighbouring Hong Kong and Macau into a ‘significant innovation centre’ by 2020.
One hundred research and development laboratories will be set up over the next three years under the plan. The hope is that by 2012, per capita output in the Pearl River Delta region should jump 50 percent compared to 2007, reaching 80,000 yuan (USD11,700). And by 2020, the Commission predicts, 30 percent of all industrial output should come from high-tech manufacturing.
If Guangdong and the neighbouring Special Administrative Regions can build further a workforce skilled in the production of high tech electronics, it could offer international gaming manufacturers the prospect of R&D and manufacturing functions on Macau’s doorstep.
China will though have to win more hearts and minds in the international community before that can happen, because of the country’s patchy record on intellectual property protection.
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