Future plans are to develop these two alongside the services industry to become the three main industries at SIP. Another five major emerging industries will be important areas of development: bio-medicine, nano-photoelectronic information, software and animation, converged communications and environmental protection.

Currently electronics and machinery account for 87 percent of large-scale industrial output, and employ 78 percent of the working population in the region.

Electronics is the biggest business. In 2008 large-scale output value was 138.4 billion yuan. It accounted for 56 percent of industrial output and amounted to 19.2 percent of total electronic industry output at SIP.

Samsung, Hitachi and Founder are among the well-known electronics brands that have bases in the park.

After electronics, machinery is the largest concern. In 2008 large-scale output value was 77.1 billion yuan, making up 31 percent of the region's large-scale industrial output.

Machinery includes the manufacture of transportation equipment, and special and general equipment. In Suzhou there are around 80 sub-industries, and nearly 100 different kinds of products.

Development goals

By 2012, the annual output value of the electronics industry is expected to reach 200 billion yuan and the annual output value of the machinery industry is hoped to reach 120 billion yuan.

There is expected to see 70 national-level high-tech enterprises evolve in the park for electronics and 70 also for machinery. Expenditure on R&D will equal more than 3 percent of sales revenue for each industry.

The park will encourage enterprises to actively explore both domestic and foreign markets.

The total number of foreign manufacturing enterprises with distribution and purchasing power will be more than 90.

In the machinery industry, focus will be on transportation equipment, medical devices and equipment industries.

The electronics industry needs to achieve breakthrough in key technologies so that it can offer cutting edge products.

A the same time the machinery industry needs to focus on the development of motor vehicles and parts, aerospace components, medical devices and equipment because of good growth prospects in these areas.

In the future, with regards to the production of general equipment, more attention will be paid to technology development and new products.

The park will introduce special support policies to help enterprises to expand their domestic and foreign markets.

It will guide companies to adjust the ratio between export and domestic sales and cooperate with other entities for R&D purposes.