I.                   GEOGRAPHIC POSITION AND CULTURE

Dongguan is located at the east bank of the Pearl river delta, it's 50 kilometers to Guangzhou to the north, and 90 kilometers to shenzhen to the south, and 47 nautical miles to hongkong , and 48 nautical mile to macao, which is a middle point between guangzhou and hongkong by road and water.

Dongguan is a historic city in Guangdong Province. More than 5000 years ago, there had been people living here. In 1839, the imperial envoy Lin Zexu came to Humen and incinerated opium, which opened the chapter of the Chinese modem history. In September 1985, Dongguan was upgraded as a city, and again in January 1988, was promoted as a prefecture city without county, with 32 towns under its jurisdiction. Dongguan covers an area of 2,465 square kilometers, with local population 1,538 million, while the migrant temporary residents 5 million. There are also 200,000 overseas Chinese with Donguan origin, and 700,000 Hongkong and Macao compatriots. Dogguan is famous as the hometown of rice and fish, lichee, dragon boat race, weightlifting, swimming, lion and dragon dance, and folk arts.

II.                SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC ACHIEMENTS

Since 1978, especially after the 4th plenary meeting of the 13th National Committee of the CPC, with the direct guidance of central committee of the party centered with Jiang Zemin, Dongguan has been sticking to the guidance of Deng Xiaoping's theory, and trying to practise the important thoughts of the ¡°Three Represents¡±, taking our own situation into consideration, started up from the processing, manufacturing, assembling and compensation trade, with processing as the starting point we took part into the international production, and agriculture industrialization and urbanization of was driven by economic globalization, the national economy has been developing sustention, speedily and soundly, all lines are developing on the whole, and the livelihood of the people become post-well-off. In the past decade, we have finished the process of industrialization, which western advanced countries took more than 100 years, and the "Four Dragons" in Asia took over 40 years to accomplish, and rapidly develop into a newly emerging city featured by its international manufacturing, creating a remarkable "Dongguan Wonder"£®

First, from a closed community to an upening-up community, export-oriented economy developed vigorously. Before 1978, there had been no economic and technological cooperation between Dongguan other countries. At present, there are investment from more than 40 countries and regions, including the United States, Japan, Hongkong, Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, with more than 14,000 overseas-invested enterprises set up in Dongguan, overseas investment amounting to US$16 billion. Some transnational corporations and consortiums set up their manufacturing plants in Dongguan. 13 of Fortune 100, and 33 of Fortune 500, and 124 transnational, as well as up to 800 overseas-listed companies have their investment in Dongguan. Some world famous brand names are produced in Dongguan, such as IBM, Compac, Nokia mobile phone, Samsung electrical, Philips electrical, and Nestle Coffee, etc.

A worldwide market network and international structure have been formed in Dongguan. For some products, like magnetic heads, computer scanner, computer drive, advanced power capacitor£¬mini-motor, recording magnetic head, and quarts core, the production volume of some transnational, which production base was set up Dongguan, account for 20% to 40% of the total in the world. Dongguan has become an important production base of computer and peripherals, and within 30 to 40 square kilometers, 95% components of a complete computer can be purchased, Dongguan is famous for "Dongguan made for the Entire World", and also a saying "If the transportation in Dongguan seize up, the all over the world will lack stock ". Garment, toy, furniture are sold to European and American countries, and one of ten sport shoes are produced in

Dongguan.

Secondly, the industrial structure has been optimized continuously. Before 1978, 80% work forces were agricultural farmer, and the industrial basis is week. Now, there are altogether 18,094 industrial enterprises, and the industrial product value last year was 130.9 billion yuan, 228 times of that of 1980, with electronics and IT industry as the pillar, by 2001, there were 2,800 electronics and IT manufacturing enterprises, with a total industrial product value 88 billion yuan, accounting for 41% of the total volume of Dongguan, while the export US$8.65 billion, accounting for 45% of the total volume of Dongguan.

At the same time, the tertiary industry has been developing vigorously. So far, there are 7 five-star hotels, more than that in the capital city Guangzhou, and ranking the first in the prefecture city in China. And there are still ten more five-star hotel to be planning to be built, three years later; Dongguan will be a city with the most five-star hotels in the world. Convention business has been booming, every year, there are more than 40 large scale exhibitions, including the Humen fashion show, Houjie Famous Furniture Fair, every October, the Dongguan 3C Expohas become the fourth largest computer and communications products exhibitions in the world, after Las Vegas of the U.S., Han Nover, Chinese Taipei, and merchants from more than 40 countries are attracted to the exposition, including America, Britain, Germany and France. This year, in die fourth 3Cexpo, 271 investment and trade contracts were signed, with a transaction volume of US$1.837 billion. By 2001, the proportion of the three industries changed from 44:44:12 in 1978 to 5.4:55.1:39.5.

Thirdly, the urbanization standard has been greatly promoted, forming a unique city structure. All the areas in Dongguan in the past were mostly villages, and now with the urban district as the center, 28 towns have been linked as a megacity. The proportion of non-agricultural employees grows from 16.6% in 1978 to 80.7%, and proportion of residents living in city and towns grows from 16% 1978 to 63.6%.

In recent years, all the towns have taken the advantage of their own resource, market and traditional industry, implementing the development strategy of" One industry drives the town, one industry boom a village", and a group of specialized industrial towns has been form, such as Garment in Humen, Furniture in Houjie, logistics in Changping, wool and textile in Dalang, information industry in Shilong, electronics in Shijie and Qingxi, real estate in Zhangmutou. At present, Humen has become a famous town of garment and the production base of Southern Style garment. Dalang has been known as "The important Town of Wool and Taxtile", which 40 of its annual wool and textile products are sold overseas, and which production volume exceeding that of the No. City of this industry ¡ª¡ªShanghai, "In winter you can see Dalang-made sweater everywhere". Houjie furniture industry is booming, and is known as "the Capital of Furniture". Chanping Town, known as "the No. 1 Town in the Beijing-Kowloon Railway" is the only town in Dongguan with two large scale passenger station and passenger and cargo exit port. Shilong town, which covers an area of less than 11 square kilometer, creating annual industrial product value per square kilometer 1.5 billion yuan, and annual tax 25 million yuan. In Shijie Town, more than 500 overseas enterprises, including 15 overseas-listed companies, have their investment there, 180 of them are electronics enterprises, and becoming an important town of IT industry.

(to be continue)

Editor: James