PROFILE OF GUANGDONG, CHINA

Nature and Geography

• Guangdong province, located in the south of the mainland of China, has a total area of 180,000 square kilometers. The province is close to the South China Sea as well as Hong Kong and Macao, and the tropic of cancer crosses the middle of the land.
• Northern part of the province is higher while southern part is lower; mountains, plains and hills overlap in the area, and the Pearl River and Hanjiang River flow from north to south, passing through the province, to the sea.
• Semitropical monsoon climate prevails in the whole province, bringing long summer and warm winter, as well as plentiful rainfalls. Grasses and trees are evergreen in the warm and humid climate.

Administrative Divisions

• There are 21 cities on or above prefecture level and 67 counties (including cities at county level) in Guangdong.
• Pearl River Delta Region in the middle of Guangdong has developed economy and represents 23% area, 40% population and 70% GDP of Guangdong; mountain areas in the eastern, western and northern parts have great potentials for development, with their abundant land and resources.
• Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong, has a history of 2210 years and was the start point of “Silk Road in the Ocean”. Now Guangzhou is a central city in southern part of China and one of the biggest trading port in the country. Shenzhen, the neighbor of Hong Kong, is the first and best-developed special economic zone in China.

Economic Strength

• Economic aggregate of Guangdong has remained the first among all provinces in the country for many years. Important economic indicators such as retail sales of consumer goods, industrial increment, citizens’ savings, taxes, financial revenue, total investment in fixed assets, freight volume and number of applications for patents also rank the first in the country.
  

  GDP GROWTH OF THE COUNTRY AND GUANGDONG

  Monetary Unit: USD billion

  Year National GDP Growth Rate GDP of Guangdong Growth Rate Proportion in National GDP 2001 1159 7.30% 127.5 9.50% 11% 2002 1237.1 8% 141 10.80% 11.40% 2003 1409.9 9.10% 162.5 13.60% 11.50%

• There are almost 80 million registered residences in Guangdong Province. In 2003, urban per capita disposable income in the province reached USD1495.7, increasing by 10.4% and 50% higher than the national average level; per capita nonproductive expenditure was USD1,164, increasing by 6.5%; and every one hundred families owned 4.37 piece of automobiles in average, 31.2% up comparing with the previous year.
  
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  Note: US dollar in this report has been converted from RMB as per the basic exchange rate published by the State Foreign Exchange Bureau on Dec 31, 2003 (100 USD= 827.67 RMB)

Industrial Structure

• Ratios between primary, second and tertiary industry in Guangdong is 8:52:40.
• Main manufacturing sectors in Guangdong include textiles and clothing, food and beverage, construction materials, electronic information, electric machinery and special equipments, petrochemistry, forestry and paper making, pharmacy and automobiles, which represent 75% of the gross industrial output value of the province. Manufactures mainly congregate in the Pearl River Delta region, which is one of the biggest manufacturing base in the world and parallels the Yangtze River Delta and Area surrounding Bohai Gulf as three biggest economic regions in China.
• Service sectors in Guangdong are among the best around the country. GDP of Guangdong in services was USD 64.64 billion, increasing by 10.8% and accounting for 40% in the total GDP. In the process of industrialization and urbanization, the proportion of services in GDP will be steadily enhanced. Among service sectors, culture, education, medical cares, professional consultancy, telecommunications and information services, finance and real estate are sectors developing faster.

Market Capacity

• In 2003, total sales of merchandises in Guangdong was 141.74 billion USD, 11.6% up comparing with the last year. Retail sales of consumer goods was 67.50 billion USD, increasing by 11.4%. Goods imported through ordinary trading amounted to 36 billion USD, increasing by 35.1%.
• Sales of each of the commodities with largest increase (above 40%) in sales in 2003, such as automobiles, petroleum and foods, reached or neared 2.54 billion USD. Import volume of steel products, finished oil products, electromechanical products, automobiles and agricultural products went up considerably due to increasing market demands.
• In 2003, service sectors grew rapidly in Guangdong:
  • Balance of loans disbursed by financial institutions was 243.16 billion USD, insurance premium revenue was 4.57 billion USD, both increasing by 20%.
  • Revenue in telecommunications was 14.34 billion USD, increasing by 36.5%.
  • Freight transport in the province was 330.25 billion ton-kilometer, passenger transport was 144.30 billion people-kilometer. In 2003, Guangdong entertained 88,093,300 over-night visitors and had a tourist income of 16.01 billion USD.

Infrastructures

• Sufficient power supply
  In 2003, power output of Guangdong was 178.38 billion KWH. Guangdong Da Yawan Nuclear Power Station was the second nuclear power station established in the mainland, and its power output in 2003 was 28.42 billon KWH.
• Developed telecom networks by the end of 2003, the province had:
• 40,550,000 mobile phone users, 51.60% of the provincial population.
• 25,670, 000 fixed-line telephone users, 32.66% of the provincial population.
• 11,070,000 Internet users, 14.09% of the provincial population.
• Reliable Ocean, Land and Air Transport networks
• 110,000 kilometers of highways, including 2412 kilometers of expressway, has been built. By the end of 2004, expressways will pass through all 21 cities on or above prefecture level in Guangdong.
• Trunk railways such as Beijing-Guangzhou Line and Beijing-Kowloon Line go through the province; quasi-express passenger railway between Guangzhou and Hong Kong has been put into use; and express trunk railway surrounding the Pearl River Delta is now being built.
• There are 7 airports in Guangdong, among them Guangzhou Baiyun Airport is a major air transport hub and international air harbor of China. Between Guangdong and Hong Kong, there are multiple express channels for freight and passenger transport.
• Guangdong owns a group of good deepwater ports such as Shenzhen Yantian Port (ranking among ten best ports in the world) and Guangzhou Port; Guangdong has established direct exchanges of shipping with over 1,100 ports in more than 130 countries and regions around the world; and ports in Guangdong have a total freight handling capacity of 423,910,000 tons, including 18,386,800 TEU of containers.

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