GUANGMING District will complete the land preparation for the construction of a science town before the end of the year.

Construction will start soon on Guangming Science Town, which covers 21 square kilometers, according to a report on the Nanfang Daily yesterday.

Located in the northeastern part of Guangming, the science town is at a key point of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong science corridor. The science town consists of five areas, namely a core area, a science and education area, an auxiliary facility area, an expansion area and the Guangming Feature Town.

In the core area, research service platforms for basic sciences, industrial engineering and facilities for material genome, and synthetic biology and interdisciplinary researches will be built. The area will focus on research in biology, information science, life science, material science and space science. It is designed to promote the upgrading of the city’s manufacturing industry to high-end manufacturing and intelligent manufacturing.

The Sun Yat-sen University Shenzhen campus will be built in the science and education area. In the auxiliary facility area, a conference center, a science display center and dormitory buildings for experts and academicians will be built. The expansion area will be a backup area for the science and research facilities and research institutions. The Guangming Feature Town will be a forestry area for leisure tourism.

In November, the city government unveiled an action plan for speeding up the development of strategic and newly emerged industries.

Shenzhen will implement an innovation-driven strategy to create 100-billion-yuan (US$14.49 billion) and 1-trillion-yuan-level industry clusters by developing the new-generation technology, high-end manufacturing, low carbon, bio-medicine, digital economy, new materials and marine economy industries.

Guangming Science Town is one of the 37 key development areas in the city.

Construction of a synthetic biology research building will be initiated this year and is scheduled to be completed by 2020.

The Guangming Forest Sports Park will be finished by 2020 and work on the auxiliary facilities will commence in 2019. The affiliated middle schools, primary schools and housing units for talents of Sun Yat-sen University will be put into operation in three years. (Han Ximin)