The City of Shenzhen

As China’s ‘Silicon Valley’, Shenzhen is a global leader in high-tech development, financial services, foreign trade, shipping, and the creative and cultural industries. Shenzhen’s mission is to model China’s structural reforms and continued opening up to the outside world. Strategically located within the Pearl River Delta region of Guangdong Province, Shenzhen Shares a border with Hong Kong and is part of the economic golden triangle of Hong Kong, Macau, and Guangzhou. It’s historic importance as the link between the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong along with the Pearl River’s development will only take on greater importance in the coming year as Beijing implements the ‘Greater Bay Area Initiative”. Shenzhen is also one of the most important exhibition and convention cities in China. Its total exhibition space and utilization rate on yearly basis have secured the top places for many years and still maintained an aggressive development speed.

FACTS & FIGURES

Shenzhen ranks 5th in Asia in terms of economic power. The city’s GDP grew by 6.7 percent to reach 2.69 trillion yuan in 2019. More than 500,000 new businesses were registered in Shenzhen in 2019, bringing the total number of enterprises in the city to over 3.2 million. More than 280,000 professionals entered Shenzhen’s workforce in 2019 and remains a strong job market in 2020. Shenzhen is the trendsetter with more patents filed, home to more PhD’s, and has the highest GDP per capita in all of China. Although short on history (est. 1979), Shenzhen maintains an incredible entrepreneurial spirit and high standard of living.

Population: 14.5 million Citizens 5.5 million Short-term Residents Total: 20 million

GDP: 401 Billion USD (surpassed Guangzhou in total output in 2019)

GDP per capita (China ranking): 1st 10,000 USD (2007) 1st 22,112 USD (2013) 1st 29,498 USD (2019)

Global Rankings: 8th Shenzhen Stock Exchange Market Cap: 4.55 tril. USD 9th Global Financial Centers Index 3rd Container port by volume of goods shipped

Individual Wealth Rankings: 3rd (China) 1,355 high-net-worth-individuals in China, 30 million USD+ (1,700 Shanghai / 1,390 Beijing) source: Barron’s 3rd (China), 7th (Global) 44 – number of Billionaires

FUTURE DEVELOPMENT +GREATER BAY AREA INITIATIVE

Shenzhen is the cornerstone of Beijing’s ‘Greater Bay Area Initiative. The Pearl River Delta region includes Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Macau, & Guangzhou. The Bay area contains 4 first-tier cities that are the foundation of creating a future ‘Megalopolis’ to surpass Tokyo, New York, and the San Francisco Bay area in terms of industry, finance, media, Innovation, and wealth creation. President Xi Jinping and the Beijing Central Government recently reinforced Shenzhen’s position as the city to lead the initiative with a new autonomy granted to pilot various reforms and programs that will be implemented throughout China in the coming years.

KEY POINTS OF THE INITIATIVE:

Construction of regional special economic zones in a new era should uphold socialism with Chinese Characteristics
The Communist Party of China Central Committee supports Shenzhen in implementing pilot programs to deepen comprehensive reform
Shenzhen should resolutely uphold new vision on development and move forward with supply-side reform to meet domestic needs
Shenzhen must deepen reform and opening-up to keep pace with the times; Shenzhen should promote entrepreneurship and the protection of intellectual property rights
Shenzhen should accelerate advancing opening-up with institutional guarantees such as rules and norms
Governance system should be driven by innovation
Shenzhen should pursue people-centered development
China will keep developing Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area
China welcomes foreign countries to participate more in the reform, opening-up and development of China's special economic zones.