Innovative firms use robots and lasers to chart a new path for Changchun, report He Na and Han Junhong.

Unlike many companies that are concerned about finding enough customers, Gou Yang, general manager of Changchun Northern Chemical Filling Equipment Co, is worried about how to handle the company's burgeoning order backlog.

Orders in hand could keep the company's facilities running around the clock until mid-2015.

The automated factory, which uses robots to load bottles of corrosive industrial chemicals, is said to be the most advanced of its kind in the nation. The production process, which the company has patented, guards against leaks that threaten workers' health and damage the environment.

It has also ended the monopoly that foreign companies held in the field.

Wu Chengshun, deputy general manager of Jilin Province King Laser Technology Co, is facing a similar situation. The company's products are used by most well-known domestic cosmetic plastic surgery hospitals and beauty salons. Its laser instruments are also exported to more than 30 countries.

The two companies are examples of the high-tech enterprises that Changchun, the capital of Jilin province, has tried hard to cultivate and support.

"Besides good market prospects, what these companies have in common is advanced technology and strong innovative ability. They don't have many employees, but research staff account for almost half of their total," said Zhao Shukuan, director of the School of Management at Jilin University based in Changchun.

"And their annual output value and tax payments have surged every year," Zhao said.

Introducing their companies, both Gou and Wu started by saying "we are a small company".

But Gao Guangbin, Party chief of Changchun, calls them "small giants".

Zhao said that the city's "small giants" number 282 and their aggregate annual output is 20 billion yuan ($3.27 billion), almost the same as that of CNR Changchun Railway Vehicles Co Ltd, the second-largest enterprise in the city.

He said these booming "small giants" in the city will gradually help the city reduce reliance on large enterprises such as China FAW Group and CNR Changchun Railway Vehicles for its economic growth.

Gao said: "By cultivating and developing private high-tech innovative 'small giants', we hope to generate new development momentum. It is a development plan for the city's future."

Fu Cheng, director of the Sociology Institute at the Jilin Provincial Academy of Social Sciences, said the strategy is a good choice for Changchun, one of the nation's oldest industrial bases, to remake its economic structure.