The Next Global City of the Future
Guangzhou truly is a wonder in the history of global cities. Of all cities around the world, Guangzhou is the only one that remains a thriving trading city for more than a thousand years.
China is taking active moves to push forward the economic globalization. The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is of strategic importance to the national development. Under this context, Guangzhou is ready and is taking action to embrace new opportunities for development, to discard the regulations abandoned by the new era, and to become the next global city by virtue of its diversity and openness.
More importantly, reform and opening-up first took place in the Pearl River Area forty years ago. Forty years later, Guangzhou desires to be in the vanguard of “Building institutional mechanisms to promote high-quality economic development, developing a modernized economy, making new ground in pursuing opening-up on all fronts and establishing a social governance model based on collaboration, participation and community interest”. From a Millennial Commerce Capital to an international center, and from an open port to a global city, Guangzhou is bringing vitality to the global economy.
Take the First Step to Embrace the World
At the end of 1978, Guangzhou took the first attempt in the country to change the price system and made a major breakthrough in the price reform. Since then, its market-oriented path led all the way. Guangzhou successfully distinguished itself and took the lead in China’s economic system reform.
This is just a quick glance at one of Guangzhou’s many first steps in reform and opening-up.
At the time of the 40th anniversary of reform and opening-up, Guangzhou, the capital city of Guangdong province which has always been at the frontier of the reform, continues to be the pioneer in exploring various fields.
In fact, “dare to become the worlds’ first” has also been running in the vein of the city. Making innovations, breakthroughs and improvements is on its name card, which directly demonstrates its positioning.
In the recent years, Guangzhou bears new responsibilities from a series of major strategic decisions deployed by Guangdong province and the country, that is to make comprehensive innovation and reform of the core pilot zone, state-level new area + pilot free trade zone, the international hub of shipping, aviation, and sci-tech innovation, etc. Guangzhou's Comprehensive Urban Plan: 2017-2035 (Draft) endows Guangzhou with a new mission and responsibility in the new era—building a livable flower and dynamic global city by 2035.
Positioned as a “Global City” will take Guangzhou further on its international runway as well as improving the city-level and influence.
To impress the world in the construction of a new global economy landscape and become one of the major cities for China to open up and connect to the world, Guangzhou has taken an active part in international high-level conferences, such as the World Economic Forum in Davos, China Development Forum, and Boao Forum for Asia. At the same time, Guangzhou also host a number of major international events, which not only has gathered first-class resources for its development but also established a strong global presence.
Apart from attending the Winter Davos and Summer Davos for eight consecutive years, from 2015 to 2016 alone, nearly 50 high-level international conferences were held in Guangzhou, which meant two conferences per month on average, covering fields like trade and economy, innovation, culture and education.
In 2017, the Fortune Global Forum held in Guangzhou was another huge success, which witnessed an unprecedented cast of high-ranking guests and conference scale. A number of international conferences including the 2018 World Route Development Conference and the 2019 World Ports Conference will arrive in Guangzhou as well.
By embracing the world and blending in the global network, Guangzhou has friends from all over the world. More than 130 countries and regions invest in Guangzhou and more than 220 countries and regions became its trading partners. By now, Guangzhou has 36 international sister cities and established friendly and cooperative ties with 31 cities.
Guangzhou’s New Identity in Global Opportunities
It has been 27 years since the concept of “global city” was first introduced to the world. Its content and development mode advance with the times and follow the pace of globalization. As one of the rising global cities, Guangzhou is carrying out its innovative practice.
In Guangzhou, its history and memories also can be seen while new ideas and imagination can be put into practice. Even at this very moment, Guangzhou is inspiring its residents who are fighting for a better life and producing new ideas to its development.
Guangzhou is well-equipped with both hard power, such as its favorable business environment and the agglomeration of high-tech enterprises, and soft power including the liveability index, people, culture and urban environment. Opening its door to the world, Guangzhou has attracted numerous “dream chasers” from all over the world because of its inclusiveness.
By the first quarter of 2018, tens of thousands of foreign-invested enterprises and hundreds of thousands of domestic enterprises have invested in Guangzhou, including 297 Fortune Global 500 enterprises. The 2018 White Paper on the Business Environment in China and the 2018 Special Report on the State of Business in South China released by The American Chamber of Commerce in South China made it clear that Guangzhou is the most popular investment city in China.
At the same time, more high-tech unicorns settled in Guangzhou. Looking to the future, Guangzhou will build several industry clusters with RMB 100 billion output value for each one to establish a new system of modern industry system which is high-end, high-quality and high-tech. The city government stated that they are committed to putting more efforts to introduce talents, technology and investment into Guangzhou.
“Guangzhou will spare no efforts to develop the three driving engines for development, namely the Guangzhou Development District, Nansha New Zone and Airport Economic Zone; speed up the construction of the “Golden Triangle” which is formed by Zhujiang New Town, Guangzhou International Finance City and Pazhou Internet Industry Innovation Cluster; and put forth efforts to build a number of value innovation parks and industrial parks.”
The reason why Guangzhou is able to keep making new friends while maintaining old relationships is that both domestic and overseas investors believe in Guangzhou’s new identity in a global spectrum of opportunities. As Guangzhou is heading to high-quality development, there is an increasing number of multinational innovation giants trying to seize the opportunities made possible by Guangzhou’s excellent adaptability during this golden age. They are trying to penetrate the industry chain and innovation chain of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area city agglomeration.
In recent years, Guangzhou’s IAB (the new generation information technology, artificial intelligence and biological medicine), NEM (new energy and new materials) and other emerging industries with strategic importance are thriving. This is the underlying reason why the world’s first-class enterprises are investing in Guangzhou to expand their business.
The establishment of Foxconn’s Generation 10.5 Display Ecological Industrial Park and Cisco Smart City will enable Guangzhou to make breakthroughs in the electronics and information technology industry. The General Electronics Bio Industrial Park has instilled vitality into and will facilitate leapfrog development in the biomedicine industry. Cosco Shipping Bulk headquarters and China Eastern Airlines Guangdong branch are speeding up the construction of Guangzhou’s harbor and airport.
New era, new opportunities. Looking into the future, Guangzhou will be better connected to the world with the new identity—the strategic hub of international shipping, aviation and sci-tech. By gathering advanced factors of the world and taking a giant leap towards high-quality economic growth, Guangzhou will become global investors’ new choice.
Edit:invest canton
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