Tesla's Shanghai factory Photo: Yang Hui/GT

The Shanghai Municipal Government on Thursday released a three-year plan to accelerate the development of the Lingang Special Area, a new expansion of the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone that aims to promote US electric auto maker Tesla's success in Shanghai to even more companies. Thursday also marked Lingang's first anniversary since its establishment on August 20, 2019.

With Lingang's high efficiency and preferential policies, a total of 358 projects covering integrated circuits, artificial intelligence, high-end equipment, biomedicine and aviation have been signed in the area since its launch one year ago, with its total investment value up to 271.3 billion yuan ($39.2 billion).

A large group of international and domestic companies have been attracted to the region, including Caterpillar, Siemens, ABB, Kalmar, Tesla, while the US electronic vehicle manufacturer Tesla is a major highlight of the economic zone. 

A senior executive at Tesla said at a media briefing on Thursday that the company will start rolling "Made-in-China" Model Y vehicles off its production line at the Shanghai Gigafactory by the start of 2021. The Model Y will be the second Tesla vehicle to be made domestically in China, following the Tesla Model 3.

The "Tesla model" has been introduced and encouraged for other companies to apply as the zone aims to lift efficiency and simplify the administrative process. A new-energy project under Lanwan Jinping New-energy Technology Co only took four months from signing the contract to obtaining the construction permit, one month faster than Tesla's plant in getting its permit, according to the authorities.

Lingang plans to cultivate large-scale industry clusters in the fields of smart auto, integrated circuits, high-end equipment and biomedicine, according to a government press conference on Thursday, as 1,500 new high-tech enterprises and institutions prepare to be built based on the three-year plan.

Over 40 integrated circuit companies have invested in the area. The Lingang authority and Wingtech Electronic Technology Co signed a contract on Wednesday to build the first 12-inch wafer fab in China to serve the needs of auto industry, with a total investment of 12 billion yuan.

The coronavirus outbreak has quickly put the biopharmaceutical industry in the spotlight. Industry leaders such as Junshi Biosciences Co opened their new plant in Lingang in 2019, with a capacity of 30,000 liters of injectable fluids, media reports said. 

The company announced in July that the all human monoclonal antibody targeting COVID-19 co-developed with Institute of Microbiology of China Academy of Sciences had been applied to phase-I clinical treatments in China. 

Based on the plan for 2020-22, the total industrial output value of Lingang is expected to reach 600 billion yuan ($86.6b), with both imports and exports exceeding 115 billion yuan, and the throughput of Shanghai Yangshan Deep Water Port surpassing 23 million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units).