Customs officers walk past a freight train departing Xiamen, Fujian province, on Aug 17. CHINA DAILY

Founded in 2018, Initial Energy Science & Technology is a supplier of lithium-ion battery testing equipment in Xiamen, Fujian province.

The high-tech company received an investment of 50 million yuan ($7.09 million) in 2023 due to its high score in "Enterprise Innovation Tax Index".

"Thanks to the financial support, both our staff numbers and revenue have doubled," said Zhang Xinghua, president of the company.

The index is an innovative endeavor of the Xiamen Torch Development Zone for High Technology Industries. It ranks enterprises' innovation ability based on their tax data, especially tax about research and development investment.

Enterprises in the 60th percentile are added into a white list and offered multiple preferential policies such as tax relief.

With the index as a reference, nine banks including Agricultural Bank of China and Bank of China have launched credit products and granted 108 local enterprises loans of 996 million yuan.

The pioneering initiative has been promoted throughout the city to benefit more enterprises, according to local officials.

During the past decade, Xiamen has been committed to innovations to create a market and rule-oriented business climate.

Xiamen's business environment reform has evolved toward becoming more integrated, said officials from the Xiamen commission of development and reform.

It focuses on marketization and convenient services, with the aim of building a favorable environment for industrial growth and fostering institutional innovation as one of the city's core competences, they added.

To date, all 200 digital systems of 59 departments in the city have been linked to a sharing platform and about 84 percent of administrative items can be handled online.

Although it's night and the lights are off, production is continuing at AUO's factory in the Xiamen Torch Development Zone for High Technology Industries.

In the warehouse, which spans more than 10,000 square meters, unmanned transport vehicles move quickly between shelves, and inside the production workshops, dozens of robotic arms operate smoothly.

"From the storage, handling and issuing to the inventory of materials, the entire process can be achieved without human intervention. Such operation at night has increased the handling efficiency by 30 percent and saved more than 60 percent in labor costs," said Cheng Manzhen, the warehouse manager at AUO, a display technology and solution provider.

In such factories, most tasks are carried out by robots or other intelligent devices, characterized by all-day operation, high efficiency, precision and flexibility.

Thanks to diverse measures, in recent years, Xiamen has seen the upgrading of its industrial layout through the integration of digital technology and manufacturing, as a part of effort to boost new quality productive forces.

Manufacturing is the cornerstone of economic development, now accounting for nearly 60 percent of Xiamen's GDP. For Xiamen, developing new quality productive forces does not mean neglecting traditional industries but enhancing them through new technologies, officials said.

Currently, in the industrial layout of Xiamen, the leading roles of the four major industries — new energy, new materials, biomedicine and cultural tourism — are becoming prominent. They are forming driving forces in Xiamen's economic development.

According to official statistics, the output value of Xiamen's strategic and emerging industries in biomedicine, new materials and new energy reached 264.91 billion yuan in 2023, accounting for 31.3 percent of the city's total industrial output.

zhanglinwan@chinadaily.com.cn

Researchers work at Zeesan Biotech, a high-tech company in Xiamen Torch Development Zone for High Technology Industries. CHINA DAILY