The Yangtze River Delta city of Wuxi intends to transform itself from a manufacturing hub to a hi-tech centre by expanding cooperation with domestic and foreign businesses, according to China Daily.

Already one of the country’s top 10 cities in terms of GDP, Wuxi signed a dozen new projects last month, including ones in electronic information, bio pharmaceutics, outsourcing, and new energy and materials.

The city in Jiangsu province has also secured an agreement with consumer electronics maker Beijing Huaqi Information Digital Technology to invest Rmb30m in a hi-tech manufacturing base. Beijing Huaqi, maker of Aigo branded electronics, plans to locate its MP6 wireless technology unit in Wuxi.

In 2009, Wuxi formed new alliances with telecom carriers China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom, to cooperate in research and development, project incubation and other areas. In addition, one Wuxi company has reportedly signed an MOU with France’s Accor Services to set up a joint venture in the city focused on its prepaid services business, which provide employee benefits and outsourcing services.

Wuxi government believes that service outsourcing could employ more than 1m people by 2020, and as a consequence it has launched a number of measures to develop its talent pool.