The 30th Anniversary Commemorative Conference of the Shanghai Young Entrepreneurs Association was recently held at the Pudong Urban Planning and Public Art Center in Pudong New Area in Shanghai.

The launching ceremony of an initiative entitled "Helping Build Pudong Leading Pilot Zone for Socialist Modernization" was also held at the conference.

The conference was guided by the Pudong New Area Committee of the Communist Party of China, Shanghai Municipal Committee of the Communist Youth League of China, and Shanghai Youth Federation, and hosted by the Shanghai Young Entrepreneurs Association.

Representatives of the Shanghai Young Entrepreneurs Association and representatives of young entrepreneurs from all walks of life attended the conference, while many young entrepreneurs watched the conference via video.

The conference started by looking back on the growth and the development of young entrepreneurs in Shanghai over the past 30 years through a short video. In a congratulatory letter, the China Young Entrepreneurs Association affirmed the important contributions made by the Shanghai Young Entrepreneurs Association and its members to the high-quality economic development of Shanghai and China.

In 1991, the development and opening up of Pudong entered a substantive start-up stage. At the same time, the Shanghai Young Entrepreneurs Association announced the establishment. This is a non-profit social organization voluntarily formed by outstanding young entrepreneurs in the city. It also serves as the bridge and link between the Shanghai Municipal Committee of the Communist Youth League of China and young entrepreneurs. Since then, the young pioneers who dare to try and be the vanguards of reform and opening up in Shanghai have a family.

Over the past 30 years, the Shanghai Young Entrepreneurs Association has been contributing the wisdom and strength of young entrepreneurs to the economic development of Shanghai and the country as a whole.

The association currently has more than 1,600 entrepreneur members, focusing on key areas of Shanghai's economic development and coming from leading enterprises, including most of the State-owned and private enterprises that pay the highest taxes, technological innovation-oriented enterprises and enterprises in emerging fields that are in line with Shanghai's high-quality development direction.

With the aim of helping build Pudong Leading Pilot Zone for Socialist Modernization, five leading representatives of the Shanghai Young Entrepreneurs Association signed strategic cooperation intention agreements at the conference with representatives of three key development areas in Shanghai -- Lin-gang, Zhangjiang and Jinqiao, focusing on cooperation and exchange, investment promotion, talent cultivation, scientific research sharing, and social responsibility.

In the future, the Shanghai Young Entrepreneurs Association and the aforementioned areas will give full play to their resources and advantages to build a long-term and stable cooperation and exchange platform in Pudong in an effort to attract capital and talent.

Ding Bo, deputy director of the Shanghai Municipal Committee of the Communist Youth League of China, said he hopes that the Shanghai Young Entrepreneurs Association will take advantage of the current economic situation to help Shanghai become more competitive, better serve its members, promote a Shanghai-style entrepreneurial spirit, help create a high-quality soft environment for the development of young entrepreneurs, and make new contributions to the cultivation of leading talent in enterprises and the construction of a high-level talent center in Shanghai.

Ding also said that the Shanghai Municipal Committee of the Communist Youth League of China and the Shanghai Municipal Youth Federation will continue to support the development of the Shanghai Young Entrepreneurs Association and provide services to young entrepreneurs.

Shan Shaojun, deputy secretary of Pudong, said that the Shanghai Young Entrepreneurs Association and Pudong New Area are both established in the 1990s, and generations of young entrepreneurs have been chasing and realizing their dreams in Pudong for many years.

China is set to give full play to the Pudong New Area's key role in high-level reform and opening-up, aiming to build it into a leading area for socialist modernization, according to guidelines released last year by the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council. This offers a rare historic development opportunity for young entrepreneurs, said Shan. Pudong will strive to create a larger stage for various market entities and talent, expand space for development, and provide enterprises with better services.

Zhou Jun, the eighth president of the Shanghai Young Entrepreneurs Association and president of Shanghai Industrial Investment (Holding) Co Ltd, delivered a speech during the ceremony. He said that China has seen a glorious 30 years, as it has seized the opportunity to bring about historic change and pushed forward with reform and opening up as a national strategy. Looking forward to the next 30 years, China will become the home of countless great companies and outstanding entrepreneurs in the fields of new energy, carbon neutrality, life technology, artificial intelligence, and new-generation digital culture. The new era calls on the young generation, especially young entrepreneurs, to strive for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

Tang Wenkan, president of the Pudong Young Entrepreneurs Association and general manager of Shanghai Jinqiao Export Processing Zone Development Co Ltd, said Pudong has increased its GDP by a factor of 210 over the past 30 years. Many young entrepreneurs who focus on Pudong’s six core industries have helped bring about the miracle.

During a roundtable discussion, leaders of the Shanghai Young Entrepreneurs Association told stories between the association and its members over the years. Gu Jianzhong, the eighth executive president of the association, shared cases in which the association helped with the development of enterprises and created a high-quality soft environment for the development of young entrepreneurs amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

"The world is constantly developing, but our members have always been guided by the phrase ‘As flame of fire we gather, as sky full of stars we scatter’,” Wang Junhao, another eighth executive chairman of Shanghai Young Entrepreneurs Association, said when he explained how the spiritual core of the Shanghai Young Entrepreneurs Association has remained unchanged for 30 years.

They encouraged the latecomers to develop together and cultivate skills to build leading enterprises that specialize in niche sectors and combine scientists and entrepreneurs, dare to redefine world standards, take root in Pudong and face the future to find their own position and direction in the world's development trajectory.

The sixth plenary session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China has passed the Resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on the Major Achievements and Historical Experience of the Party over the Past Century, which sounded the clarion call for Chinese youth to bravely shoulder the historical mission in the new era and continue to forge ahead on a new journey.

The Central Economic Work Conference held in December has deployed the economic work for next year, which also calls on the Shanghai Young Entrepreneurs Association and young entrepreneurs to unify their thoughts and actions into the country's analysis of the situation and decision-making.

At the end of the event, representatives of members of the Shanghai Young Entrepreneurs Association and youth representatives issued an initiative: to integrate more deeply into the national strategy and urban construction, to gather more young entrepreneurs for the urban development of Shanghai, and to meet the needs of the times in the next 30 years with firm determination and full confidence.