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    Urban evolution researcher Tan Zhongkui

The "low altitude" in the Yangtze River Delta has become busy.

On August 10, a B-70AP helicopter took off from Shanghai Longhua Airport and flew to Shengsi Huaniao Island in Zhoushan, Zhejiang; on August 16, a helicopter took off from Feixian (Nantong) Air Express Service Base and landed in Suzhou Industrial Park; on August 18, a helicopter carrying two passengers took off from Kunshan City Terminal and landed at Shanghai Pudong Xingye Flight Base...

Kunshan-Shanghai Pudong 30 minutes, Suzhou-Nantong 25 minutes, Suzhou-Wuxi 12 minutes. As low-altitude air routes become more and more dense, the four provinces of Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui are also more closely connected, exploring the way for the cultivation of inter-provincial low-altitude economic scenarios.

Recently, Urban Evolution Theory has visited many cities that are developing low-altitude economy, and held dialogues with urban authorities, low-altitude economic parks and enterprises. It has found that an important consensus has been formed in the field of low-altitude economy - scenario traction.

The exploration of consumption scenarios and the cultivation of consumption habits are the key to whether the low-altitude economy in various places can run through the commercial closed loop. On August 16, the Shanghai Municipal Government’s official website issued a notice on the issuance of the "Shanghai Urban Low-altitude Economic Industry High-quality Development Action Plan (2024-2027)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Shanghai Action"), proposing to jointly build the first batch of low-altitude inter-provincial aviation cities in the country with the cities in the Yangtze River Delta, build a leading area for the national low-altitude economic industry comprehensive demonstration zone, and accelerate the creation of a "Sky City" with international influence.

In the past, compared with the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, the Yangtze River Delta's approach to the low-altitude economy seemed a bit "unorganized", and there was a certain gap in the scale of the industry and the scene. However, Shanghai, the "first city of civil aviation", called on the surrounding cities in the Yangtze River Delta to build a "sky city", which may be the beginning of the Yangtze River Delta's "fist attack" in the low-altitude field.

And what will this bring to the cities in the Yangtze River Delta?

The competition among regions to seize the low-altitude economic high ground is becoming increasingly fierce.

In October 2023, the "Green Aviation Manufacturing Development Outline (2023-2035)" specifically encouraged the establishment of "low-altitude economic demonstration zones" in advantageous regions such as the Pearl River Delta, Yangtze River Delta, Bohai Rim, Chengdu-Chongqing, and the core cities in the four major regions. The main force in the development of the low-altitude economy, and the competition around the "Sky City" has become fierce.

According to the "Urban Low-altitude Economy "Connectivity" Index Report (2024)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report") jointly released by Urban Evolution Theory and Huoshi Chuangzao, a low-altitude economy "Connectivity" index model is constructed based on the four dimensions of enterprise concentration, capital activity, innovation concentration, and environmental friendliness, and an evaluation is conducted on 271 cities across the country involved in the low-altitude economic industry.

Among the 30 cities in the urban low-altitude economic "connectivity" index, 11 are in the Yangtze River Delta (Shanghai, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Wuxi, Hefei, Changzhou, Wuhu, Xuzhou, Nantong, and Jiaxing).

However, from the perspective of echelons, Beijing and Shenzhen play the role of "leaders", with the "connectivity" index reaching 83.49 and 77.28 respectively, while Shanghai is in the second echelon with Guangzhou, Xi'an, Nanjing and Chengdu.

"From the perspective of the development of the low-altitude economic industry, Beijing has a strong scientific research base and policy support, the advantages of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao are reflected in the more market-oriented part, and the Yangtze River Delta is sandwiched in the middle." Flint Chuangzao CEO Yang Hongfei previously analyzed to Chengshu that the Yangtze River Delta has not really exerted its strength, "has not yet reached an industrial scale, and has not yet achieved particularly large success in many scenarios."

Compared with the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, the cities in the Yangtze River Delta are indeed somewhat "bulky". In May this year, Guangdong Province has issued the "Action Plan for Promoting the High-Quality Development of the Low-Altitude Economy in Guangdong Province (2024-2026)", proposing that by 2026, the scale of the low-altitude economy will exceed 300 billion yuan, and a low-altitude economic industry pattern with three cores of Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Zhuhai linked, multiple points of support and integrated development will be basically formed.

Before Shanghai, only Anhui Province in the Yangtze River Delta released the "Implementation Plan for Accelerating the Cultivation and Development of Low-altitude Economy in Anhui Province (2024-2027) and Several Measures", proposing to strive to reach 60 billion yuan in the scale of low-altitude economy by 2025, and to build Hefei and Wuhu as two low-altitude economic core cities by 2027. Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces have not yet issued a special three-year action plan for low-altitude economy, but have appeared in the form of urban planning in Nanjing, Suzhou, Hangzhou, Jiaxing and other cities.

Nanjing proposed to strive to rank first in the country in terms of low-altitude economic development by 2026, and to develop the city's low-altitude economic industry to exceed 50 billion yuan; Suzhou proposed to become a national low-altitude economic demonstration zone by 2026, and strive to gather 500 related enterprises in the industrial chain, with an industrial scale of 60 billion yuan; Hangzhou proposed to become a national leading city in low-altitude economy by 2027, with an industrial scale exceeding 60 billion yuan.

"Shanghai's proposal for a 'joint' development of the low-altitude economy is an important turning point." Zhu Keli, director of the China (Chengdu) Low-altitude Economy Research Institute and author of "Low-altitude Economy - New Quality Revolution and Scenario Change", believes that in the past, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and other places mainly formulated plans based on their own conditions and needs by core cities in the region. There were differences in goals and paths, which appeared to be relatively "loose". The "joint" action proposed by Shanghai will help break down administrative barriers and jointly explore new models of cooperation in the low-altitude economy.

As the "first city of civil aviation", Shanghai's goals in the field of low-altitude economy are becoming clearer. The "Shanghai Action Plan" proposes to build Shanghai into a highland of innovation, commercial application and operation services for the low-altitude economy industry by 2027, with the scale of the core industry reaching more than 50 billion yuan.

From the perspective of the three "highlands", Shanghai has placed the construction of low-altitude economic scenarios at a new height. At the same time, Shanghai specifically proposed to join forces with cities in the Yangtze River Delta to build the first batch of low-altitude inter-provincial aviation cities in the country and build a comprehensive demonstration and leading area for the national low-altitude economic industry.

In Zhu Keli's view, Shanghai's proposal to jointly build the first batch of low-altitude inter-provincial air traffic cities in the country for the first time shows its ambition as the leader of China's economy. From a national perspective, the current low-altitude economic application scenarios are still mainly within the city and province, mainly limited by factors such as airspace management, infrastructure construction, technology maturity and market demand. The move by Shanghai and the cities in the Yangtze River Delta is a positive exploration to break through this limitation.

This is also the beginning of the Yangtze River Delta's "fist attack" in the field of low-altitude economy under the leadership of Shanghai. The permanent population of the Yangtze River Delta accounts for about 16.9% of the country's total, and its GDP accounts for about a quarter of the country's total. In the view of Ding Guojie, senior vice president of Shanghai Zhongchuang Industry Innovation Research Institute, the population and economic activity in the Yangtze River Delta are high, and the demand for inter-city logistics, business and tourism is strong. The low-altitude economy has broad application prospects in these fields.

From a national perspective, low-altitude inter-provincial air traffic is still a major difficulty, as flights across administrative regions involve many aspects such as airspace, management, and security. In the field of low-altitude economy, the core cities of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Zhuhai, provide examples of division of labor and cooperation among cities within the province, while the core cities in the Yangtze River Delta are expected to take the lead in exploring the experience of cross-provincial cooperation.

"The construction of the first batch of low-altitude inter-provincial aviation cities in the country will accelerate the integration and optimization of the low-altitude economic industrial chain, attract more capital, technology and talents, and promote related technological innovation and business model innovation. In this way, it is expected to form a replicable and popularizable experience model, setting a benchmark for the high-quality development of the low-altitude economic industry across the country." Zhu Keli said.

This will obviously help to tap into mature and high-frequency scenarios in the low-altitude economy. In fact, in addition to low-altitude aircraft, the market has increasingly paid attention to low-altitude scenarios, as well as basic low-altitude infrastructure such as routes and take-off and landing stations, which are also the key to the low-altitude economy being able to run a commercial closed loop.

A more common practice is that government departments and state-owned enterprises such as urban management departments, transportation investment, and cultural tourism groups rely on their own resource advantages in urban surveying and mapping, urban governance, traffic inspection, cultural tourism, etc. to guide the cultivation of low-altitude economic scenes and attract low-altitude economic industry chain enterprises to gather upstream and downstream.

For example, low altitude + culture and tourism, low altitude + urban governance, low altitude + medical care, low altitude + logistics, and low altitude + manned traffic are also scenarios that various places are actively exploring.

This is also the focus of the Yangtze River Delta's low-altitude economy. Not long ago, Shanghai Mayor Gong Zheng pointed out during a survey that the low-altitude economy is gradually becoming a trillion-level industrial blue ocean. Shanghai should speed up the improvement of supporting facilities and service capabilities, speed up the opening of application scenarios, promote commercial pilots and large-scale applications, and cultivate new "low-altitude +" consumption scenarios.

To a certain extent, low-altitude economic scenes were previously mainly concentrated within cities and provinces, which objectively suppressed the real demand for low-altitude economy. The "linkage" of the Yangtze River Delta is expected to become the beginning of cross-provincial exploration of low-altitude economic scenes.

"Give full play to the spillover effect of Shanghai's large aircraft industry, innovate in the layout of new low-altitude economic industries, build mutually integrated industrial chains, talent chains, and service chains, and further consolidate Shanghai's advantageous position as the 'first city' of the national civil aviation industry." This is one of the important purposes of the introduction of the "Shanghai Plan."

In fact, relying on its strong civil aviation industry foundation, Shanghai has attracted and nurtured more than 60 innovative upstream and downstream enterprises in the industry chain, including aircraft research and development, advanced power, structural materials, mounting navigation, and scenario applications, and has a complete supply chain in the "three electrics" (batteries, motors, and electronic control systems).

This also leads to a relatively large concentration of leading low-altitude economic enterprises in Shanghai, especially eVTOL innovative enterprises, which account for about 50% of the country. For example, leading VTOL enterprises such as Fengfei Aviation, Shi Technology, Yufeng Future, Volant, and Pantuo Aviation have gathered in Shanghai and are known as the "eVTOL Five Little Dragons".

Image source: Xinhua News Agency

This time, Shanghai specifically proposed to give play to the spillover effect of Shanghai's large aircraft industry, and COMAC and AECC (China Aero Engine Corporation Commercial Aircraft Corporation) also have a lot of room for imagination in driving the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain. This will also help Shanghai further enhance its leading and radiating capabilities in the low-altitude economy and drive the cities in the Yangtze River Delta to accelerate their "breakthrough" to the low-altitude economy.

The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is a model for reference. "Shenzhen has taken the lead in creating a 'closed loop' by relying on its own industrial ecological advantages, while Zhuhai has focused more on scene opening and application, and Guangzhou has carried out industrial transformation at a deeper level, deepening and expanding the 'pilot'." The report describes the demonstration effect released by the Greater Bay Area in the field of low-altitude economy.

By 2023, the annual output value of Shenzhen's low-altitude economy will exceed 90 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 20%; 77 new drone routes will be opened, with a total of 156 routes opened, and 600,000 cargo drone flights completed, ranking first in the country in terms of flight scale; consumer-grade drones account for 70% of the global market share, and industrial-grade drones account for 50% of the global market share; the number of helicopter flights exceeds 20,000, leading the country in terms of flight scale.

In Yang Hongfei's opinion, from the perspective of the scale of the low-altitude economic industry, the Yangtze River Delta, including Shanghai, has not yet achieved a major breakthrough and needs to make real efforts. However, the Yangtze River Delta has always been ahead in the industry level, especially the enterprises are particularly sensitive, "its scientific research, including manufacturing, is still rich enough."

From all indications, Shanghai will become an absolute strong core, thereby driving the coordinated division of labor among the cities in the Yangtze River Delta in the low-altitude economy and jointly expanding the "Sky City". The "Shanghai Plan" proposes 23 specific tasks in six aspects, including the cultivation of leading enterprises, the supply of key supporting facilities, the construction of soft and hard facilities, the creation of space carriers, the improvement of management services, and the promotion of commercial scenarios, all of which are aimed at strengthening the scale and influence of the low-altitude economy.

Zhu Keli believes that Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao have made remarkable progress in the field of low-altitude economy by virtue of their unique locational advantages and policy dividends of trial and error, but the Yangtze River Delta is not without the possibility of catching up. It is necessary to make full use of its own advantages such as vast economic hinterland and strong market demand, strengthen policy guidance and support, and promote the improvement and innovation of the low-altitude economic industrial chain.

"Although the Yangtze River Delta faces challenges in developing the low-altitude economy, its unique advantages and potential cannot be ignored. This is a competition that concerns the future, and the Yangtze River Delta is ready to go," he said.