Low-altitude cultural tourism, logistics distribution, environmental monitoring... At present, drones are changing people's production and lifestyle. As an emerging industry track, the low-altitude economy that "rides the wind" is booming everywhere. A relevant report from the CEDI Research Institute of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology shows that China's low-altitude economy in 2023 was 505.95 billion yuan, with a growth rate of 33.8%. According to the forecast of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, by 2025, the market size of my country's low-altitude economy will reach 1.5 trillion yuan, and by 2035, it is expected to reach 3.5 trillion yuan.
Accelerate product and scenario innovation
In the past two years, my country's series of development achievements in low-altitude technology, equipment manufacturing, scenario application, etc. have been unveiled one after another.
Recently, United Aircraft Group has successively released two new drone products, Q100 and T1200 in Pingfang District, Harbin City. It is understood that these two new products will break through the traditional operating model and fully empower the agriculture, emergency response, logistics and other industries.
Walking into Feiao Aviation Engine Co., Ltd. located in Rizhao Hi-tech Zone, Shandong, we will wait for loading and launching of various palletized engines. "This 360cc engine is suitable for drones with take-off weights from 10 kilograms to 1 ton." Chang Shuzeng, chairman and general manager of the company, introduced that Fei'ao currently has a drone engine production line with fully independent intellectual property rights and full process flow. Corporate orders have been scheduled until April and May next year.
Since the beginning of this year, Shandong's low-altitude economy has developed rapidly. Rich and diverse application scenarios and rapid growth of flight activities have effectively promoted the settlement of low-altitude operation, R&D, manufacturing and service enterprises in Shandong, with the number of enterprises and business scale both growing by more than 20%. Lian Bo, deputy director of the Shandong Provincial Department of Transportation, introduced that relying on the creation of unmanned aviation pilot zones and urban air traffic management pilot projects in the Shandong Peninsula Urban Agglomeration, we will regularly select and publish a list of typical low-altitude application scenarios and recommend catalogs, accelerate the trial of advantageous areas, and create a low-altitude multi-scene application system according to local conditions.
Strengthen industrial supporting support
At present, localities are accelerating the cultivation of innovation ecosystems, strengthening support for funds, talents, policies, services, etc., and promoting the gathering of various innovation factors to enterprises.
The Harbin United Aircraft Industry Base, located in Pingfang District, Harbin City, officially started construction in April this year and was topped off in August. In the future, it will be built into a "one hospital and four bases" including large drone research institutes, new generation large drone production and manufacturing bases, large drone application demonstration bases, manned aircraft unmanned driving transformation bases and drone industry ecological chain bases. It is expected to produce 10,000 drones annually, and more than 200 new jobs are created.
Tian Gangyin, chairman of United Aircraft Group, said that the bungalow area provides a perfect business environment for the project to be implemented early and reached full capacity. Government departments will jointly establish a special team with enterprises to solve various problems in a timely and effective manner. For project approval matters, local special teams were formed to lead and handle the matters, and each link was strived to be approved at one time, which accelerated the project's progress.
Talent is an important support for competing for a low-altitude economy. Today, Shandong has more than 10 aviation colleges and universities involved, with nearly 20,000 students. Guo Yingjun, director of the Development Planning Department of Shandong Aviation College, told reporters that the college has established the UAV Research Institute and the UAV Industry Innovation Institute, actively promotes the integration of industry and education, and integrates science and education, and innovates the talent training model for the aviation industry. It has jointly built two provincial industrial colleges, namely the Flight Academy and the UAV Academy and the Aviation Intelligent Manufacturing College with nearly 30 companies.
Improve medium- and long-term layout
At the beginning of last year, Shenzhen City wrote the "low-altitude economy" into the local "Government Work Report" and proposed to build a low-altitude economic center. The "Implementation Rules of Shenzhen Municipal Transportation Bureau's Several Measures to Support High-Quality Development of Low-altitude Economy" (Draft for Comments)" recently released proposed that for low-altitude infrastructure construction funding projects, one-time funding will be provided in accordance with 20% of the actual construction costs (excluding aircraft procurement and software systems) confirmed by the special audit of third-party institutions, and each enterprise receives a total of no more than 10 million yuan in annual funding.
"Improving the low-altitude infrastructure network is a prerequisite for promoting innovation in various application scenarios of low-altitude economy. Recently, Shenzhen proposed to build more than 1,200 low-altitude take-off and landing facilities by 2026 and build a integrated communication network system. The launch of the "Implementation Rules" is timely and will press the 'accelerator' for the construction of low-altitude infrastructure." Wang Xiaoling, general manager of Shenzhen Shengxiang Low-altitude Technology Co., Ltd., believes that the implementation of a series of policy combinations will open up the low-altitude industrial innovation chain, industrial chain, and capital chain.
The "Implementation Plan for High-Quality Development of Low-altitude Economy in Harbin (2024-2027)" recently issued clearly defines the overall idea of promoting high-quality development of low-altitude economy in Harbin. The plan focuses on seizing the blue ocean of the low-altitude flight service market, with "low-altitude +" as the main focus, and promotes the deep integration of low-altitude flight with eight low-altitude fields of agriculture, forestry, emergency rescue, cultural, sports and tourism consumption, public services, logistics and transportation, education and training, and maintenance.
In order to promote high-quality development of low-altitude economy, the "Three-Year Action Plan for High-Quality Development of Low-altitude Economy in Shandong Province (2025-2027)" proposes that by 2027, more than 10 leading enterprises in the industrial chain with ecological dominance, more than 100 innovative small and medium-sized enterprises, and specialized and new enterprises will be cultivated, with a low-altitude economy scale of 100 billion yuan, basically forming a new pattern of low-altitude economic development led by Jinan and Qingdao and multi-point support from Dongying and Yantai.