Shenzhen’s GDP grows 8.8%, exceeds CNY2 trillion
January 23, 2018 Category China News Round-up, Weekly
The southern Chinese city of Shenzhen has marked an economic milestone, surpassing the CNY2 trillion GDP mark with 8.8% growth in 2017 to cement its role as an engine of the Pearl River Delta. The city, which is roughly the same economic size as Singapore and Hong Kong, recorded nominal output of CNY2.2 trillion in 2017 thanks to its booming hi-tech sector. Over 40% of the output came from “innovative” businesses such as internet, biotech and telecom. Hong Kong’s gross domestic product was USD320 billion in 2016 and was estimated to rise 3.7% last year, while Singapore’s economy was valued at USD297 billion in 2016 and may have grown 2.5% last year.
Starting as a small fishing village in 1980, Shenzhen has grown from a sweatshop into a hi-tech hub home to 12 million people and a group of leading Chinese tech firms, including internet giant Tencent, telco Huawei and drone maker DJI. It had more than 3 million registered businesses at the end of 2017, or one registered enterprise for every four people. In nominal terms, Shenzhen has doubled its economic output in just six years – the city’s nominal GDP was CNY1.1 trillion in 2011. About 4.13% of Shenzhen’s GDP went into research and development (R&D) in 2017 – the highest for any Chinese city – and that level was expected to rise to 4.25% by 2020, compared to Hong Kong planning to double its R&D expenditure to 1.5% of its GDP in the next five years to encourage innovation.
Together Shenzhen, the provincial capital Guangzhou and Hong Kong, have a combined economic size of about USD1 trillion, forming the backbone of an envisioned “Greater Bay Area”, the South China Morning Post reports.
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