A team of entrepreneurs led by Ou Jinping, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, signed a contract with the government of the city of Nantong, Jiangsu province, and the Nantong Economic and Technological Development Area, the afternoon of July 3, to establish a civil engineering company as a new national civil engineering innovation base. The signing was witnessed by Zhang Guohua, Nantong's mayor, Zhang Zhaojiang, a member of the standing committee of Nantong, and other officials, the NETDA has reported.

Ou Jinping, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering since 2003, who headed the team of entrepreneurs, expressed his appreciation for the city's services, its location, transportation, transformation, and innovation, and said he hopes to establish a company, by August, with government assistance to set up an industrial base to develop intelligent materials and structures, in cooperation with his team. It consists of 10 professors, 20 associate professors, 100 master’s degree and doctoral students.

Zhang, the mayor, described the development of Nantong and how it is striving to change itself into an innovation-oriented city and said the cooperation was a winning idea in every way.

Edited by Zhao Qian and Roger Bradshaw