The production value of Shenzhen’s high-tech industry, mainly comprised of electronics and information, biopharmacy, advanced manufacturing, new energy and new materials, hit 2.6 trillion yuan (US$367 billion) in 2019, up by 10.08 percent over 2018, Shenzhen Economic Daily reported, quoting official statistics.

The added value of the industry reached 923 billion yuan last year, a growth of 11.3 percent over the previous year.

The development of Shenzhen’s high-tech industry started in the early 1990s and was chosen as one of the four pillar industries for key development. In 1991, the production value of the city’s high-tech industry was 2.29 billion yuan, but it increased to 65.5 billion yuan in 1998, weighing 35.4 percent of the city’s total industrial value.

The export of high-tech products also increased from US$192 million in 1992 to US$4.43 billion in 1998.

Statistics showed it took 32 years for Shenzhen’s high-tech industry to hit the threshold of 1 trillion yuan in 2010 from scratch in 1979.

The city seized the historic opportunities for high-tech development in 1999 to stage the first China Hi-Tech Fair and abandoned the Litchi Festival that had been held for many years.

The first high-tech fair was held at a temporary site in Futian CBD and was attended by then Premier Zhu Rongji and more than 100 delegations from dozens of countries and regions. Through development in the past decades, China Hi-Tech Fair has become the most influential, largest high-tech exhibition in China.

In seven years, the production value of the city’s high-tech industry jumped to the threshold of 2 trillion yuan. The production value had experienced an average growth rate of 10.6 percent per year between 2012 and 2017. In 2017, production value reached 2.13 trillion yuan and the added value of the industry also increased to 735.9 billion yuan, accouting for 32.8 percent of the city’s GDP.