In addition to the efforts put forth by the Jiangsu provincial administration to support foreign investment in the province, a large number of financial incentives and funding programmes in Jiangsu province are offered by all levels of administrations.
Under the project, 38 funding programmes and 6 supporting policies were analysed. Detailed factsheets for each of them are included at the end of this page. Other funding programmes are available in other municipalities, as well as at the county/high-tech zone level.
Key funding bodies
- Jiangsu Provincial S&T Department: for projects mainly involving R&D and the establishment of key innovation centres/facilities
- Jiangsu Provincial Industry and Information Technology Department: for projects involving industrial upgrading, purchase/development of new equipment, etc.
- Municipal-level governments (e.g. Nanjing Municipal S&T Commission, Suzhou Municipal S&T Commission, Wuxi Municipal Commission of Economy and Informatisation, etc.)
- National Innovation Demonstration Zones, and other industrial parks (Suzhou Industrial Park, etc.)
Level of transparency
Programmes in Jiangsu are overall very standardised and transparent. New calls for application are generally published at regular schedules (i.e. around the same period every year) and therefore highly-predictable. The lists of approved projects are, in most cases, published and openly consultable online (it was the case for 32 out of 38 projects monitored under the project).
Degree of international participation
The degree of international participation within the programmes monitored by the project team is classified as fair. German and American actors appeared to be the most active, although other EU countries also perform fairly well. The extent and the ‘quality’ of international participation vary according to the programme and the level of administration:
- In 3 out of 32 cases, international participation was above 10% of the total. In the Wuxi Intelligent Production Line Programme, 40% of the beneficiaries in 2018 were foreign-invested enterprises
- Overall, international participation is lower within provincial-level programmes, compared to municipal-level ones. HNTE status and the Jiangsu Provincial Technology Transfer Fund ranked first and second amongst provincial projects, respectively with 6.5% and 4.9% of beneficiaries being foreign-invested enterprises
- In many other cases, the degree of international participation was very low, largely under 5% of the total, but nonetheless always present.
These figures are less positive compared to programmes in the Shanghai area. However, this is at least partly compensated by a very large number of ad hoc programmes exclusively targeting international cooperation joint projects with foreign partners.