Proceedings get underway at the ninth World Jilin Entrepreneur Convention. [Photo provided to gojilin.gov.cn]
The ninth World Jilin Entrepreneur Convention opened on July 25 in Changchun, capital of Jilin province.
Over 400 Jilin entrepreneurs from around the globe returned to their homeland to celebrate and promote the Jilin entrepreneurial spirit and contribute to the province's revitalization.
The convention serves as a key platform for showcasing Jilin's openness and attracting global Jilin entrepreneurs to invest and develop businesses in the province.
Currently, there are 115 Jilin entrepreneur organizations worldwide, with a membership of 55,809 and a total Jilin entrepreneur community exceeding 3 million.
Over the years, these entrepreneurs have invested nearly 500 billion yuan back into Jilin.
In recent times, Jilin has continued to optimize its government services – with officials leading the transformation of administrative functions, accelerating project approvals, boosting regulation and improving overall services.
Economic growth is a magnet attracting the return of talent and last year Jilin's GDP grew by 6.3 percent year-on-year – 1.1 percentage points higher than the national average.
The province has outlined plans to support over 300 "smart transformation and digitalization" projects in the next three years – focusing on the automotive industry, as well as the pharmaceuticals, equipment, food, petrochemicals, raw materials and other sectors.
The goal is to establish one to two so-called "lighthouse factories" – pathfinders for development – as well as 100 smart manufacturing demonstration factories and 300 provincial-level smart manufacturing digital workshops.
This year's convention presided over the signing of 55 contracts, involving total investment of 31.47 billion yuan ($4.34 billion).