A curved car dashboard free of buttons enabled by a flexible sensor.CHINA DAILY

The city government chose internet, biotechnology and renewable sectors as strategic industries to focus on in 2008. One year later, information technology and new materials were added to the list of strategic industries. Each of the sectors has been receiving financial support of as much as 500 million yuan ($76.8 million) every year.

Research and development investment accounted for 4.05 percent of the southern city's GDP last year. That R&D investment figure is about the same level as South Korea's and higher than the national level of 2 percent. More than 90 percent of the R&D investment in Shenzhen came from private enterprises.

The efforts have paid off and helped the city weather the global economic slowdown. Last year, Shenzhen's GDP grew 8.9 percent to 1.75 trillion yuan as the country witnessed its slowest GDP growth in more than two decades at 6.9 percent. In terms of city-wise GDP in China, Shenzhen lags only three other cities: Shanghai (2.49 trillion yuan), Beijing (2.3 trillion yuan) and Guangzhou (1.8 trillion yuan).

Strategic industries contributed 40 percent of Shenzhen's GDP last year, and 50 percent of its GDP growth came from the industries, said Xu Qin, mayor of Shenzhen.

To lure the best talent and projects for these strategic industries, Shenzhen launched a special program, called Peacock, in 2011. Projects that entered the Peacock program are awarded at least 10 million yuan as startup fund. Royole is one of the 60 projects that have received financial support.

"Shenzhen is a vibrant city, where you can concentrate on technology innovation itself without worrying about red tape," Liu said.