Part One: About Guangdong's Natural Conditions

Guangdong Province, "Yue" for short, is located at the southernmost end of China's mainland. Sharing land borders with Hong Kong and Macao and with Guangzhou as its capital, it covers a land area of 178,000 square kilometers and a costal line of 3,368 kilometers. The 2,122 km-long Pearl River, which runs across the province, is the third longest river in China. The Pearl River Delta and Han River Delta are well-known fertile lands of fish and rice.

Guangdong, located in the sub-tropical region, is full of greenth throughout the year. Facing the vast South Sea with lofty Nanling Mountain chain sitting on the back, plus the unique and gorgeous Danxia physiognomy, Guangdong owns marvelous scenes of "green water and red cliff".

With a total population of 77.83 million, 53 ethnical groups of the country's 56 are living in the province, and the population of the minority ethnical groups accounts for 1.4 percent of the province's total. The main minority ethnical groups are Zhuang, Yao, She, Hui and Manchu.

Guangdong is also the most famous hometown for overseas Chinese. About 6 million Hong Kong and Macao compatriots are originated from Guangdong, and the number of its folks that spread throughout the world tops 22 million. Historically, Guangdong was one of the earliest trade ports. It once was the starting point of the famous "Silk Road of the Sea", which was actually started from Guangdong's Xuwen, and became prosperous as early as the Qin and Han Dynasty. Overseas culture came along the Silk Road and spread throughout the region. The cultural amalgamation had made Guangdong's culture more vital, more open and more creative.

Part Two: About Guangdong's Socio-Economic Development

Guangdong is the pioneer region of China's reform and opening policy. In 1978 when China first adopted the reform and opening up to the outside world policy, Guangdong became the leading province. Among the four SEZs (Special Economic Zone) set up in the country, three were located in Guangdong. SEZs were endowed with special policies and flexible treatments in their economic exchange with the outside world. The rapid socio-economic development driven by reform and opening has brought about remarkable success to the province. With further opening up, Guangdong has now created a new all-round, multi-level and broad structure for opening.

1. Economic Powerhouse of China

Guangdong has become the economic powerhouse in China. Between 1978 and 2002, Guangdong had been enjoying an average annual GDP growth rate of 13.4%. In the year of 2002, Guangdong's GDP topped RMB 1,177 billion Yuan (about US$141.8 billion), accounting for one tenth of the nation's total. In addition, Guangdong ranked the first place in many major economic indices such as investment in fixed assets, gross retail of consumer goods, bank savings, total volume of import and export, fiscal revenue.

2. Export-oriented Economy

Guangdong owns a developed export-oriented economy. Guangdong has now established trade relationship with more than 200 countries around the world. In 2002 its total volume of export and imports hit US$221.1 billion, among which US$118.5 billion came from export, accounting for 36.4% of the nation's total. Guangdong is also the province that has absorbed most foreign investments. Ending the year of 2002, the aggregated foreign investment in Guangdong amounted to US$157.6 billion, among which US$124.9 billion was direct investment, about 28% of the nation's total. In recent years, the actual annual use of foreign investment in Guangdong remained at around US$15 billion. In 2002, foreign direct investment amounted to US$13.1 billion. Over half of the Fortune 500 companies had investment in Guangdong. All have generated good yields.

3. Well-developed Communications & Transportation

Guangdong is one of the provinces that have the most complete and convenient infrastructure facilities. It has airlines and sea routes connecting to countries and regions in all continents, advanced railway and highway network, excellent telecommunication network consisted of microwave, optical fiber, satellite transmission and broadband network. By the end of 2002, Guangdong had built up a highway network of 106,340 kilometers (of which 1,850 kilometers were expressway), an electricity network with a total capacity of 35,380MW, a telephone network that had covered 69.6% of the province's families, and registered Internet user of more than 10 million.

4. Sound Industrial Structure

Industrial structure of Guangdong has been improved considerably. The value-added ratio among the primary industry, the secondary industry and the tertiary industry was changed from 29.8:46.6:23.6 in 1978 to 8.8:50.4:40.8 in 2002.

Industrial production has been growing rapidly. In 2002, the province's gross industrial output reached RMB 1,603.9 billion Yuan (about US$193.2 billion), representing an annual growth rate of 18.5%. The increment of industrial production accounted for 44.8% of the province's GDP and 55.1% of the whole economic growth was attributed to it.

Foreign industrial investment has always been strong in Guangdong. Between 1997 and 2002, the aggregated actual foreign industrial investment amounted to US$59.742 billion. In 2002, the gross industrial production generated by those foreign-invested enterprises in the province reached RMB 982.313 billion Yuan (about US$118.4 billion). Foreign-invested enterprises are mostly located within the Pearl River Delta region. Dongguan City, for instance, hosts several thousand enterprises with investment from Japan and Taiwan, and now it has become one of the major manufacturing bases which can be self-supported for world electronic information industry.

Guangdong has a relatively complete range of industries. Light industry and manufacturing industry are relatively developed, and the whole industrial structure is being optimized. While boosting the development of the three new pillar industries, namely electronic information, electrical appliances and machinery, and petrochemistry, the province also makes great efforts to renovate its three major traditional industries (food and beverage, textile and garment, and building materials). In addition, industries such as forestry and papermaking, pharmaceutical and automobile are actively developed. Thus, Guangdong now has altogether nine major industries that are of considerable competitiveness. At the same time, new service sectors have been developing rapidly. Knowledge-intensive sectors such as education, science and technology, consultation and information service, together with tourism and recreational industry have gained great momentum. Modern logistics industry is also well under the way of development.

New high-tech industry has been growing rapidly in Guangdong. So far there are 1,731 provincial level new high-tech enterprises. In 2002, the total output of new high-tech products amounted to around RMB430 billion (about US$51.8 billion), allowing an increase of 180% over that of 1998 and accounting for one fifth of the gross industrial production of the province. The export volumes from this sector reached US$30.97 billion, about 3.7 times over that of 1998.

5. Flourishing Private Businesses

Private sector grows stronger and stronger day by day in Guangdong. By the end of 2002, there were 258,600 private enterprises with a total registered capital of RMB 338 billion (about US$40.7 billion), ranking the No. 2 and No. 1 provinces respectively in the nation. Sustained development has also been enjoyed by individual business. With 1.753 million individual businesses and a total registered capital of RMB 43.62 billion Yuan (about US$5.3 billion), Guangdong also ranked No. 1 in the country in this regard.

6. High-quality Education

With the popularization of 9-year compulsory education, Guangdong's education endeavor has also gained considerable progress. By the end of 2002, there were 71 institutions of higher learning in Guangdong, with a total enrollment of 468,000 students.

7. Perfecting Social Security System

Social security system has been further improved while employment situation has remained stable. The system has covered all the retirement pensions. More than 11 million working population from urban area have joined the basic retirement pension scheme, and about 9.5 million people have joined the unemployment insurance scheme, while more than 7.2 million people have been covered by the basic health insurance scheme. The registered unemployment rate in urban area stays at around 3%.

8. Living in Guangdong

The living standard of people in Guangdong has been improved while all the other social endeavors have been moving forwards steadily. In 2002, the per capita income of Guangdong's urban population reached RMB 11,137 Yuan (about US$1,342), while the figure for the rural population was RMB 3,912 Yuan (about US$471), about 44.6% and 58% higher than those of the nation's average respectively.

The public cultural facilities network has been initialized in both urban and rural area in Guangdong. The entire population is now able to enjoy primary medical care. The fast growing tourist industry now shares about one forth of the nation's total market.

9. Ecological Construction in Guangdong

Great emphasis has been attached to the environmental protection and ecological construction. In recent years, the work of environmental protection and ecological construction were greatly enhanced. As a result, the province now has a forest coverage rate of 57.2%.

Part Three: The Socio-Economic Development Situation of the Pearl River Delta Region

The Pearl River Delta region, populated by 37.14 million people, occupies an area of 41,700 square kilometers, about 0.4% of the nation's total area. As one of the most popular investment regions among national and international capital, multinational companies and international consortiums, the Pearl River Delta region has been playing a leading role in the economic development of the whole province.

1. High-speed Economic Development

Economy has been growing in a sustained and rapid manner. Between the year of 1996 and 2002, the average annual growth rate of GDP in the Pearl River Delta region was 13.3%. In 2002, its GDP hit RMB941.9 billion Yuan (about US$113.5 billion), accounting for 73% of the province's total. The per capita GDP was RMB 34,295 Yuan (about US$4,132), about 2.3 times and 4 times of that of the provincial and national average respectively.

2. Optimized Industrial Structure

Industrial structure has been optimized. In 2002, the ratio among the three industries was 4.9:49.8:45.3, while the output of new high-tech products accounted for 28% of the gross industrial production, about 8 per cent higher than the average of the entire province. The Pearl River Delta region has now become an important manufacturing base. Its fast-growing electronic information industry has turned it into one of the world's biggest manufacturing bases for this industry. A case in point is that its PC component production output accounts for more than 10 per cent of the world's total.

3. More Opening-up Steps

Bigger step has been taken to open up. In 2002, its total export volume amounted to US$112.6 billion, representing 95% of the province's total and 34% of the nation's total. The actual use of foreign direct investment reached US$11.6 billion, about 88.6% of the province's total.

4. Developed Infrastructure

Infrastructure has been improved remarkably. There is more than 900 kilometers expressway across the region. Huge projects such as the line 2 and line 3 of Guangzhou Metro, line 1 of Shenzhen Metro, the new Baiyun International Airport are under construction. Guangzhou Port, with an annual turnover capacity of 150 million tons, is among the top ten ports in the world, while Shenzhen port, with an annual turnover capacity of 7.61 million standard containers, is among the top 6 container ports in the world.

5. Development Goals of the Region

The development goals of the delta region have been set as follows: to become a new high-tech industrial zone led by electronic information and biological engineering industry, an internationalized manufacturing base and a modern logistics base with strong radiation to the neighboring regions, a pioneer of socialist market economy and a demonstration field of sustained development. Its specific targets are:

a. Economic strength will be enhanced remarkably. By the year 2010, it is estimated that the GDP will hit RMB 2,050 billion Yuan (about US$247 billion), representing an annual growth of around 9%. The per capita GDP will then be around RMB 62,000, i.e. more than US$7,000.

b. Economic structure will be adjusted considerably. Industrialization will be led by informationalization, and urbanization will be eventually driven. By the year 2010, the ratio of the three industries will be adjusted to 4.7:42:53.3 with the total output of new high-tech products weighing more than 25% of its gross industrial production.

c. The new all-round, multi-level and broad structure of opening up will then have been established with its dominant role in the nation's export volume remaining unchanged.

d. People's living standard and quality will be largely improved. Per capita income among the urban population will be averaged out at RMB 25,600 Yuan (about US$3,084) while the figure for the rural population will be RMB16,600 Yuan (about US$2,000). Pollution will then be effectively brought under control and ecological environment will be properly maintained.

Editor: Catherine