Guangzhou is the largest industrial, commercial and cultural center in South China. In the past 20 years the economic reform has brought a bumper harvest. Great changes have taken place.

Guangzhou's economic growth is very eye-catching and its GDP rose from 4.309 billion RMB yuan in 1978 to 238.3 billion yuan in 2000. GDP per capita increased from 907 yuan in 1978 to 34 500 yuan ($4000) in 2000, ranking the third among the ten major cities in China. Guangzhou's per capita disposal income reached 13,967 yuan in 2000, the highest among major cities in China. Guangzhou's bank deposit of all sorts mounted to 500 billion yuan, about 5% of the national total, but its population only takes 5/1000 of the national total. Guangzhou is rich in capital resources and local enterprises can greatly benefit from that. Guangzhou's personal income reached 19 674 yuan, the highest of China's major cities (Shanghai/18 532; Beijing/16 350). Life spending in Guangzhou was 6 188 yuan/per person, 30.7% higher than that of Beijing whose life spending came up to 4 736 yuan in 2000. There are over 100 000 private cars in Guangzhou, also the highest number of the major cities in China. Things are changing much faster than what is expected. In 2001, Guangzhou's GDP reached 268.5 billion yuan with 37 900 yuan per capita.

    At present, Guangzhou is promoting industrialization and modernization of agriculture. Guangzhou's industrial structures are made up mainly of transportation and communications, commerce and foreign trade, service and tourism, real estate, finance and insurance, post and telecommunications, electronics, information technology and synthetic material industry. Guangzhou is characterized with its own regional features in daily necessities, such as food, entertainment, tourism, hobbies, parties, shopping and entertainment.

As a result of the rapid growth of IT industry, Guangzhou has set up a capacity of 2.4445 million switching centers of local telephone service with over 18.825 million users. In Guangzhou there are 117 telephones and 54.2 computers for 100 urbanites. At present about 2.02% Cantonese have been on line already. Only in Guangzhou there are 0.89 million users of the Internet, and communication spending per capita reached 630.45 yuan, topping the nation. The number is increasing much faster than one can imagine. Apart from those mentioned above, the construction of software centers is developing fast with the appearance of Tianhe Software Garden, Nanhai Technological Garden, and Guangdong Software Garden in recent years. So Guangzhou has been elected one of the top 10 electronic & information bases in China. Besides, Guangzhou has established trade relationship with more than 200 countries and regions all over the world. About 160 of the 500 Top Multinational Corporations (MNCs) have invested in Guangzhou.

Editor: Catherine