Shenzhen, southern China – The Guangdong Province in southern China, known to many Arab, Asian, African and European traders, has special importance. In addition to the city of Guangzhou, which is famous for its trade fair that has been held since 1957, it includes several economically and industrially emerging cities, and overlooks the Greater Bay Area, which includes Hong Kong and Macau.
The cities of Shenzhen and Qinhai are the last of Hong Kong and Macau’s nine upward neighbors, and with them 11 Chinese cities have become economically integrated with each other.
Last December, a trade conference was organized in Hong Kong for the second year in a row on “Development of the Greater Bay Area,” in the presence of more than a thousand officials, investors, and businessmen from home and abroad. This region includes Hong Kong, Macau, and the cities of Guangdong Province, which correspond to them geographically.
In a country with a vast area in addition to its population, “developmental geography” is an essential element in implementing the economic plans of a country that has become a competitor to Western and Asian countries economically and technically, and each region in China is distinguished in an aspect of production, industry, development, or export.
The nine neighbors
This urban, technical and economic phenomenon depends on catching up with Hong Kong as a famous global economic and financial center, and seeks based on a plan approved in July 2017 to make Hong Kong a “lever” and a “window” for its nine neighbours, and each of these cities has no less advantages and attractions. About Hong Kong’s past and present.
China aspires to make the Greater Gulf region an “innovation and technology hub” in the south of the country, and includes 9 cities or municipalities, which are as follows:
- Guangzhou, or Guangzhou, is the capital of the region, home to the famous annual trade fair, and the commercial capital of China. It has 80 universities, about a million university students, and more than 100,000 companies and technical businesses.
- Gaoqing, a famous cultural, historical and tourism city.
- Khoy Gu, known for its port, petrochemical industries, and information electronics, and ExxonMobil invested $18.97 billion in it until the end of 2022, and it has enormous natural resources, including about 30 types of minerals, a good living environment, many tourist areas, and agricultural production of rice and other things. Good areas of forest, which explains the quality and purity of the air.
- Foshan, famous for its furniture, home appliances, pottery, opera, Chinese medicine, martial arts and other folk arts.
- Dongguan, the global industrial center that produces about 60,000 types of products in about 40 sectors and provides about 90% of electronic spare parts, including mobile phones, is where about 5,700 Chinese companies are based and integrate their work with Shenzhen and Hong Kong.
- Jongshan, which is a major transportation point on the western bank of the Pearl River, and an industrial area where many industrial experiments are conducted in Guangdong Province, includes the manufacture of home furnishings, textiles, fabrics, lighting, health products, medicines, and boats. In its port are a number of major government companies such as the Shipbuilding Company, the Train Company, The Offshore Oil Company, and the Iron and Steel Company.
- As for Jiangmen, it is the favorite city for Chinese returning from countries where they immigrated and worked.
- Juhai, where the defense and air exhibition grounds are located, is the only city on the Chinese mainland connected to Hong Kong and Macau following the completion of a bridge between the three cities in 2018, with a length of 50 kilometers, as the longest bridge over water in the world, through which 27 million people or 5.5 million cars crossed in the past 2024.
- Shenzhen, the ninth city, is the “Silicon Valley of China” and the home of emerging companies.
Tax exemptions
Shenzhen’s Qinhai – with tax exemptions and other incentives – attracted thousands of Hong Kong residents and businessmen, especially young people and entrepreneurs, within what was called the “Qinhai-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Modern Economy Services Cooperation Zone” to enhance financial, economic and logistical communication between Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland.
This includes the sectors of technical innovation and inventions, property rights, development of skills and expertise, and industrial and technical research, including the maritime and navigational field, liberalization of trade and finance between the two regions, and legal harmonization between Hong Kong and Zhenhai, with the latter benefiting from the former’s expertise in law, finance, and commerce.
Silicon Valley China
In confirmation of the importance of Shenzhen, including the Qinhai region, some major companies have taken their headquarters there, until it has become known as “China’s Silicon Valley,” led by DJI, the largest drone company in the world, which has made drone photography a global phenomenon, and seeks to build… A new headquarters for its industries and research in the field of information aviation systems is also in Shenzhen, aspiring for Shenzhen to remain the capital of China in the “drones” economy, which is expected to reach $136 billion in value in the coming years.
Also in Shenzhen was the beginning of the BYD electric car company 30 years ago, which now owns about 30 factories around the world. It has surpassed Tesla to be the largest electric car manufacturer in the world, and is now in the third and fourth phase of construction of its industrial city to reach production. To a value of $27.6 billion annually.
It also has the headquarters of Tencent, the leading company in smart phone applications for social and information communication and smart financial transactions, by providing applications that are alternatives to applications of Western origin used around the world, and serving more than a billion people inside and outside China, and providing electronic games, and is even the largest in this field, and its production cinematic and advertising content, and almost every Chinese citizen does not use this company’s applications on his phone.
Huawei, the leading company in the field of information communication technologies and telephone networks, was also launched from Shenzhen in 1987. Today, the number of its employees exceeds 207 thousand people in 170 countries around the world, and serves about 3 billion people.
One of the bright names in the sky of Shenzhen is the Insta 360 company for small, portable cameras and its editing and directing applications, which began selling its cameras about ten years ago. Although it produces cameras for various electronic devices, it is famous for its round photography and light sports cameras carried by athletes, adventurers, and documentary filmmakers. Within a few years, it captured more than half of the personal panoramic camera market, worth more than $276 million.
Rich cities
The cities included within the Greater Bay Area are the richest in southern China, as their gross domestic product reached about two trillion dollars in 2023, which is equal to about 1/9 of China’s gross domestic product, which is double what the state of this region’s economy was in 2013.
The annual handling potential of the total ports of the Greater Gulf region has reached more than 85 million containers linked to the shipping routes of major cities and ports around the world, and thus it is an important growth engine for the Chinese economy and global trade movement.
It is noteworthy that the area of the Greater Bay Area is estimated at 56 thousand square kilometers, and its population exceeds 86 million people, and interest and development in it comes within a plan that extends until 2035, thus competing with famous economic regions such as the Tokyo Bay Area, the San Francisco Bay Area, and the New York Bay Area.
This plan is inseparable from the Belt and Road Initiative, which was launched 11 years ago. Strengthening the status of Qinhai or Shenzhen and its neighbors as a whole contributes to strengthening and expanding the Chinese presence through the Belt and Road Initiative, and vice versa.
China’s foreign relations – through this initiative – could bring more foreign investments, trade partnerships and markets to Qinhai and Shenzhen, and even to all companies in the cities of the Greater Bay Area.
