Chengdu, capital of southwestern China’s Sichuan Province, established a platform catering to drone industry chain players, marking another major step in its quest to become China’s industrial drone “capital.”
Unveiled at a local conference on May 19, the platform, the first of its kind in the province, will enable information-sharing, service recommendation, an industry-research nexus and mutual technological assistance for local drone manufacturers and upstream or downstream industry partners.
The birth of the platform comes against the backdrop of Chengdu’s ambitions to become the city with the largest drone sector across China, a target that was spelled out in its government work report early this year.
The platform, aside from the abovementioned scope of business, aims to offer a suite of services including flight application, airworthiness certification, test flight, test site rental, talent nurturing, design and manufacturing, and industrial appliction.
Besids, it also provides access to resources, publishes notices and organizes conferences and exhibitions, among other functions.
According to some officials, one of the platform’s goals is to increase collaboration and complementarity among drone-related companies and reduce homogenous and vicious competition, so as to create a virtuous circle of competition on quality and innovation-led growth.
Industrial drone is one of Chengdu’s 28 key industrial chains. The city reportedly boasts more than 100 drone-related firms spanning raw materials, basic parts and systems, drone production and operation.
Of them, AVIC UAS (中航无人机), JOUAV (纵横股份) and Tengden (腾盾科技) and six other UAV manufacturers recorded revenue of 4.1 billion yuan (US$584 million) in 2022, up 23% year on year.
Together they contributed to an income of over 8 billion yuan throughout the industrial chain.
Chengdu also helped construct 15 provincial-level organizations, including a design center and a research institute, to spearhead the development of industrial drones in Sichuan province.
In terms of financial support, the fast-growing city also set up eight government-affiliated investment funds worth to the tune of 12.85 billion yuan, with a fixation on the aviation industry.
