IMS Gear (Taicang) Co Ltd in Taicang, a county-level city in East China's Jiangsu province. [Photo/WeChat account: tcfbgw] 

Taicang, a county-level city in East China's Jiangsu province, has been expanding cooperation with Kunshan in industries including auto spare parts, intelligent manufacturing, electronic information, biomedicine and new materials. 

Kunshan is a county-level city in Suzhou, which is located adjacent to Taicang. 

Taicang currently has 10 joint ventures undertaken by companies from the two cities. These projects include a lubricating utensil plant operated by Autol Technology Co Ltd. 

More and more enterprises from the two cities have also been establishing business ties in terms of raw materials, equipment, and logistics and warehousing. 

For example, IMS Gear (Taicang) Co Ltd, a German company based in Taicang, has been procuring raw steel materials from Kunshan enterprises. Doing so also allows them to reduce transportation time and costs. 

More than 80 percent of the company's raw materials came from Kunshan enterprises during the COVID-19 pandemic period, said Hui Zhijun, procurement manager of IMS Gear. 

The governments of the two cities have been working toward establishing a new coordinated development mode to facilitate the integrated development of the supply and industrial chains. 

An official from the Taicang development and reform commission noted that Taicang will join hands with Kunshan to build an industrial alliance and take advantage of universities and colleges based in the two cities to boost technology innovation.