Rental demand in Shanghai's business parks is seeing a gradual recovery. New parks have opened in town for tenants to move into. Chen Tong takes a closer look. 

Covering a total area of 130,000 square meters, this industrial park in Shanghai's Changning district opened this month. Half of the space has already been rented out.

LU JIA General Manager, Bio Hill "The macro environment this year is still challenging. But we are working with tenants to solve the problems in decorations and business development. We held a special event for bio medicine companies. Companies here were actively signing up to participate."

The park is designed for life science companies.

One of the new tenants, that moved in this month, produces food ingredients. The firm decided to move in because of the support offered by the district and the industrial park.

ZHOU XINRONG Marketing Director, Shanghai Lemont Biotechnology "It offered us favorable tax policies, and supports us on talent hiring and residence permits. The industrial park also helped us to build our lab here."

CHEN TONG Shanghai "The development of the industrial parks has been a hot topic in Shanghai. Just this month, the city government made it clear that supporting industrial parks means supporting the city's high-quality development. At the same time, investments are also coming to support construction of the parks."

A white paper released by real estate consultant JLL shows business parks for industries including integrated circuits, life sciences, artificial intelligence, new energy vehicles and gaming have seen the most obvious rental demand in the past two years.

And the city's support for these industrial parks will help speed up the development of high-quality industries.

STEPHEN YU Head of Business Park Services, JLL Shanghai Office Leasing Advisory "Internal and external pressure has pushed our country to find its own innovation path. Shanghai's construction of a science and innovation center is crucial for it to build itself into a world-class city. But our economic foundation is not relying on rapid growth of the traditional industry, but breakthroughs in high-tech areas."

Economic uncertainties were indeed bringing challenges to the rental demand for business parks.

But JLL's data show that net absorption in the city's business parks turned positive in the third quarter, meaning the city's high-quality development is back on track. 

Chen Tong, CGTN, Shanghai.