A bird's eye view of the Torch Park at the Xiamen Torch Development Zone for High Technology Industries. (PHOTO: XTZ)

By?ZHONG Jianli & FU Xiaobo

Xiamen Torch Development Zone for High Technology Industries (XTZ), in southeast China's Fujian province, recently launched a host of online and offline services covering enterprise management, brand promotion, and commercialization of sci-tech achievements, at the Science and Technology Service (STS) Week, which were well received by enterprises in the zone.

Emphasizing IPR protection

As one of the core competitive aspects of enterprises, intellectual property rights (IPR) protection became one of the highlights of the STS Week.

Chen Dan, head of the Secretary Office of the Science and Technology Service Alliance of XTZ, said, "During the STS Week, we arranged IPR experts to conduct a comprehensive diagnosis and analysis of the intellectual property work of enterprises, and put forward suggestions for early risk management. By doing so, enterprises can better carry out R&D activities, and stimulate innovation."

Meanwhile, Zhong Yuping, administrative manager of a financial service company in Xiamen, said, "We attach great importance to software copyright applications and plan to apply for 10 software copyrights this year," adding that small and medium-sized technology enterprises can enjoy 50 percent subsidies when applying for software copyrights, which greatly saves the cost of IPR application and enables enterprises to apply for more IPRs.

Issuing "innovation vouchers"

An electronic payment voucher launched by XTZ to encourage enterprises to strengthen R&D aims to motivate enterprises to actively use various high-level services, and by doing so improve their innovation ability and operation levels. Qualified enterprises in XTZ can apply for a voucher of up to 200,000 RMB.

According to statistics, XTZ has organized and evaluated 210 such voucher service institutions, to provide 807 innovative services in seven categories, including legal advice, financial accounting, management consulting, technological innovation and quality services, for enterprises in the zone.

So far, XTZ has authorized more than 240 million RMB of innovation vouchers and served 6,188 enterprises in the zone.

In future, the zone will fully integrate resources and attract more top- flight service providers from all over the country, so as to help improve the independent innovation ability of enterprises by providing professional services for them, said Chen.