Silicon Bay

Silicon Bay is a 10km² free zone in Miyubi Prefecture in Surea with special benefits to companies operating within it. And providing various infrastructure services. The region is home to many of the world's largest technology corporations. Despite the development of other high-tech economic centres throughout Surea, Silicon Bay continues to be the leading hub for high-tech innovation and development, accounting for 1/3 of all of the venture capital investment.

Introduction
Established in 1984, Silicon Bay Authority (SBA) is wholly owned by the Government of Surea providing both a living and working integrated community. Silicon Bay is a Free Zone Authority and provides free zone incentives and benefits to companies operating within the tech park. Silicon Bay spans 10km². The Authority has made a large capital investment in its infrastructure to cater to the need of high tech industries in the free zone. This ranges from advanced telecommunications, a fibre optic network, tier 3 data centre with 120 high capacity racks, and a high-tech utility infrastructure with 14 power stations with a capacity of 1600MW. The technology park possesses a combined fire, water and irrigation supply system which is supported by a pump station and a 5000m³ underground irrigation tank. A sanitary water network is also provided giving potable water supply of 48,000m³ per day based on an estimated 196,400 population working and/or living at the Silicon Bay. It has a sewerage management system includes onsite pumping stations that transport wastewater to municipal plants through a new pressure pipeline. Current capacity of the sewage management system is 4,800m³ per day (of which the technology park currently uses approximately a third) with a planned expansion set to see the capacity increased to 10,000m³ to facilitate the community’s future growth.

In addition, Silicon Bay has a fully completed network of roads allowing quick in and out access to major highways.

Economy
According to a 2010 study by AeA in 2009, Silicon Bay was the third largest high-tech centre (cybercity) in Surea, behind the Greater Konggei Area and Greater Hondu Area, with 205,000 high-tech jobs. The Yuyang Science Corridor as a whole however, of which Silicon Bay is a part, would rank first with 435,000 high-tech jobs. Silicon Bay has the highest concentration of high-tech workers of any metropolitan area, with 412.7 out of every 1,000 private-sector workers. Silicon Bay has the highest average high-tech salary at ¥13,800,000. Largely a result of the high technology sector, the region has the most millionaires and the most billionaires in the Surea per capita. Only a combination of both Greater Konggei Area and Greater Hondu Area has more millionaires and billionaires than Silicon Bay.

Surean entrepreneur, Sōdai Morgan commented that "Silicon Bay is just another world in terms of you go down to a coffee shop and everyone will be there on their laptops coding a startup or pitching a VC or talking about startup companies,"

The region is the biggest high-tech manufacturing centre in Surea. The unemployment rate of the region was 7.4% in January 2009.

Benefits
Silicon Bay clients are offered a number of benefits operating within the technology park. These include:
 * 100% foreign ownership
 * 100% repatriation of capital
 * Zero Income tax
 * Zero corporate tax
 * Low cost of operations
 * State of the art IT infrastructure and facilities with tier 3 data centre
 * Fast-track business set-up & licensing
 * Dedicated business support services including integrated online E-Business system offering tenants * fast and efficient services at the touch of a button
 * Access to regional pool of talented technical and engineering professionals
 * Stable and clear regulation
 * Access to consumer markets of 5.6 billion people (Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Zonyon, Eastern Russia and China)

In-house Services
The Silicon Bay Authority (SBA) provides a comprehensive range of in-house business and government services in order to fulfil all legal and operational requirements. All services are provided directly by SBA under one roof.

As an authority of the Government of Surea, SBA is the municipal body of the free zone which issues all types of licenses as well as the following services:
 * Company licenses (issuance and renewal)
 * Work permits
 * Employee visas
 * Family residence visas
 * Customs clearance
 * For companies opting to construct their own facility at the tech park, issuance of building permits, design approval, certificate of completion and other permits are all obtained through SBA.