This is the hometown of Asian flying man Su Bingtian, and also the world-renowned capital of lighting, Guzhen Town in Zhongshan City. It is a small town with an area of less than 50 square kilometers, yet it occupies more than 70% of the domestic lighting market share. Recently, Guzhen Town has added a new honor, as the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development announced the first batch of characteristic towns with Chinese characteristics, with six towns in Guangdong Province making the list, and Guzhen Town being the only characteristic town from Zhongshan.

Core area of the global lighting source production cluster

Since the 1980s, the people of Guzhen have gradually explored the regional characteristic economy from the accumulation of "carrying lamps around the world," paving a unique development path led by the lighting industry. Today, Guzhen Town is the global source of lighting, a core area of the industrial cluster. According to an authoritative release by the China Illuminating Engineering Society in 2017, Guzhen's lighting sales account for more than 70% of the domestic lighting market share. Currently, the town has over 8,000 enterprises related to lighting manufacturing and sales, with more than 300,000 lighting industry practitioners, and lighting products exported to over 130 countries and regions.

After more than 30 years of development, a lighting industry cluster centered on Guzhen has formed, covering 11 towns and districts in three surrounding cities, with an annual output value exceeding 100 billion yuan. Guzhen Town has become one of the major professional lighting markets in the world, and the largest professional production base and wholesale market for lighting in the country. Guzhen Town holds lighting expos every spring and autumn, having undergone 20 sessions of continuous reform and innovation, and has now developed into the largest international lighting professional exhibition in the Asia-Pacific region.

Innovation-driven development has become a trend in Guzhen

Lighting is both an industrial product and a craft, as well as a fashion item. Over the years, Guzhen Town has focused on highlighting the characteristics and advantages of the lighting industry, identifying core drivers, and using innovation to drive industrial transformation and upgrading.

Intellectual property is a key link in achieving innovation-driven development in the lighting industry. Guzhen Town implements a strong intellectual property strategy, adhering to the concept of "driving design with intellectual property, driving brand innovation with design, and driving industrial development with innovation" to shape the regional brand of "Guzhen Lighting." In 2011, it pioneered the establishment of the "China Zhongshan (Lighting) Intellectual Property Rapid Rights Protection Center" at the town level, creating the "Guzhen Platform" with functions for patent application and authorization confirmation by the National Intellectual Property Administration, and establishing the "Guzhen Model" for administrative and judicial protection of intellectual property rights, significantly shortening the patent application process for lighting design from one year to within 10 working days. From 2011 to 2017, the town's patent application and authorization volumes reached 23,261 and 18,157 respectively, with both figures ranking first in the city for nearly four years, making innovation a prevalent trend in Guzhen.

The Productivity Promotion Center of Guzhen Town oversees 29 public innovation service entities, including research and development design, testing and certification, financial services, intellectual property rights protection, information dissemination, business services, and brand incubation, serving as a development service platform for the lighting industry. By creating a systematic technological innovation service platform, Guzhen's lighting industry has effectively shifted from extensive growth to intensive growth, expanding from manufacturing to research and development and marketing, ensuring continuous entrepreneurial innovation in Guzhen.

Holding a lighting culture festival to develop the lighting creative economy

Today, the development of the lighting industry has shifted from "industrial manufacturing" to "artistic creation." Lighting culture is a unique resource of the lighting economy; adhering to creativity and culture is essential to forming a unique comparative advantage in the industry.

Guzhen Town holds a lighting culture festival concurrently with the autumn lighting expo each year, showcasing lighting fixtures through a "fashion show" format, transforming them into light scene displays through a "light show," allowing Guzhen's lighting to directly enter the global consumer's view, greatly enhancing the brand awareness of "Guzhen Lighting." At the same time, using lighting culture as an entry point, it injects more cultural connotation into the industry and the city.

Liu Jianhui, the secretary of the Guzhen Town Party Committee, stated that the purpose of holding the lighting culture festival is to stimulate the endogenous motivation of the global lighting industry, enhance public attention to the lighting industry as a creative economy, attract a group of industry designers and distributors from around the world to Guzhen, Zhongshan, bringing various creative lighting cultures, driving the development of design, production, and engineering lighting in the industry, and jointly telling the story of the lighting creative industry.

The Guzhen Lighting Expo and the lighting culture festival have become the golden business cards for promoting the "Zhongshan Lighting" regional brand. Liu Jianhui, the secretary of the Guzhen Town Party Committee, stated that Guzhen will focus on lighting culture, effectively expand the scale of industrial tourism, and deeply promote the concept of characteristic towns in government decision-making, business operations, and cultural innovation, creating a star lighting characteristic town.