Since the production of the first car in the Chinese mainland, Jiading district of Shanghai has become a thriving hub for the automobile industry and is striving to exceed 500 billion yuan ($28.9 billion) in total industrial output value in terms of auto enterprises above designated size by 2020.

Jiading is the largest automotive industry base in China.

At present, the number of vehicle and automobile parts enterprises in Jiading has surpassed 300, with a cluster of auto giants such as Shanghai Volkswagen, Volvo and SAIC Motor setting up shop in the local area. There are more than 100 research and development institutions and over 30,000 automotive professionals that contribute to an industry chain covering R&D, software development, financial services and trade.

The development has brought numerous honorary titles to Jiading, including Technology Satellite City, China's First International Demonstration Zone of Electric Vehicles and China's First National Pilot Demonstration Zone of Connected Automated Vehicles (Shanghai), among others.

Unsatisfied with its current status however, "the district on wheels" wants to move faster. It has set the goal of building a world-class auto industry center which should be realized through expansion of the auto industry and value chain.

Currently, the output value of the manufacturing industry accounts for about 55 percent of the total GDP of Jiading. Statistics show that by the end of 2018, Jiading had a total of 188,000 enterprises, of which more than 11,500 were manufacturers, the majority privately-held. There were about 1,373 foreign-funded auto enterprises.

Chen Huifen, deputy director of the Jiading District Economic Commission, said that Shanghai proposes that the proportion of its manufacturing industry will be no less than 25 percent by 2020.

Jiading is sure to fulfill the task as it continues to focus on automobiles and directing energy towards optimizing and upgrading the structure and layout of the industry.

"It is necessary to improve the layout of the industry chain and promote the construction of a number of new energy vehicle projects. Only in this way can enterprise clusters form and a complete core industry chain of new energy vehicles develop," explains Zhang Xi, Party chief of Jiading district.

New business formats, new models and new markets will carry on expanding in Jiading's auto industry, while the boom in intelligent connected technology, new energy solutions and new business models will also be leveraged to inject new momentum into the sector.

The use of new technology is also also in line with, as Zhang also noted, automobiles becoming increasingly "low-carbon, intelligent, connected, and shared."

Meanwhile, Jiading is additionally prioritizing the development of four emerging industries: integrated circuits and IoT, new energy vehicles and automobile intellectualization, high-performance medical equipment and precision medicine, and intelligent manufacturing and robots.