The capital of Guangdong province, Guangzhou, has been approved by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to build the first blockchain development pilot demonstration zone in the nation, stimulating the city’s development of its blockchain technology and industry in the years ahead.

As a significant software-industrial center in the mainland, the southern metropolis has also launched particular measures for the city’s development of blockchain technology and industry 2020-22, according to a statement released by the city government on Friday.

“Guangzhou will continue to spare no effort to promote blockchain innovation and development and take blockchain as an essential breakthrough for independent innovation of core technology and strive to build the city into a domestic blockchain industry cluster in innovation and application industries.”

Major companies in the city will be supported and guided to improve and combine blockchain technology with finance, information, intelligent manufacturing, bio-medicine, supply chain, industrial Internet, scientific research, logistics, intellectual property, and related industries in the coming years, further to enhance their supply chain technologies and digital transformation, stated the statement.

“Guangzhou has a dynamic scientific research atmosphere, rich human resources, and strong economic development momentum, and therefore, the city has its great advantages to become a new and major blockchain technological and industrial center in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area,” the statement said.

Meantime, Guangzhou has continuously strengthened the extensive combination of blockchain technology and several fields of the traditional economy and developed a new engine for high-quality economic development in the city, the statement stated.

Guangzhou has extended its association with major internet and technology companies, including Tencent, Alibaba, JD, and Baidu, in growing its blockchain technology and industry, the statement further added. Guangzhou has, so far, recorded more than 400 blockchain companies principally included in government administration, bio-medicine, finance, people’s livelihood, and manufacturing industries, according to official statistics.