Pattern of Opening-up

    Guangdong took lead in introducing the opening-to-outside policy in China and has been striving to merge into the globle economy; an all-dimensional, multilayer and wide-range opening pattern has already been formed in Guangdong.

Opening-up

• China established first three special economic zones in Guangdong, namely Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Shantou. Guangdong now has 18 economic and technological developing zones at the state level and 64 developing zones at provincial level.
• Guangdong has established trade relationships with over 200 countries and regions in the world, and over 100 countries and regions have invested in Guangzhou. Among 500 biggest companies, more than 250 companies set up over 400 enterprises in Guangdong. There are over 90,000 foreign-invested enterprises and over 3,000 representative offices of foreign investors in Guangdong. Both China Export Commodities Fair and China Hi-tech Fair are held in Guangdong every year.
• In the province, there are 51 opened class-one ports, representing 22% of that in the country; and 99 opened class-two ports, representing 66% of that in the country. The port between Guangdong and Hong Kong is one of the busiest land traffic ports in the world, with over 400,000 passengers and 30,000 freight trucks passing through each day during peak times. Guangzhou Baiyun Airport set up international flights with 21 major cities in the world, and its international flights are expected to exceed 40 in the future three years.

Foreign Trade

• In 2003, total exports and imports of Guangdong amounted to 283.65 billion USD, 28.3% up comparing with the last year and representing 33% of total exports and imports of the country; among which, total exports reached 152.94 billion USD, increasing 29.1% and representing 34.9% of total exports in the country; and total imports was 130.70 billion USD, increasing by 27.3%.
  
• Electromechanical products are dominating trade of Guangdong, of which the exports and imports volume in 2003 reached 173.85 billion USD, representing 61.3% of the total trading volume. Trading of high-tech products has been growing fast, with an increase of 47.3% in 2003 and reaching 93.58 billion USD, and representing 33% of the total trading volume at present.
• In 2003, Trading volume between Guangdong and major trading partners are: Hong Kong 59.26 billion USD, United States 44.54 billion USD, Japan 34.60 billion USD and EU 30.61 billion USD, representing an increase of 24.4%, 22.8%, 29.6% and 30.6% respectively.
  

Foreign Investment

• By the end of 2003, Guangdong had absorbed foreign direct investment (FD”) up to 140.5 billion USD. Among which, 15.58 billion was absorbed in 2003, representing 29.13% of total FDI in the country and 18.8% up comparing with the last year.
• In Guangdong, FDI focuses on industry. Among new FDI in 2003, USD179 million, 11.13 billion and 4.27 billion were invested to the primary, second and tertiary industry, representing an increase of 12.6%, 12.0% and 41.8% respectively.
• 55% of FDI received by Guangdong in 2003 came from Hong Kong. In recent years, investment from the European Union has grown rapidly. In 2003, EU invested 740 million USD in Guangdong, 105.42% up comparing with the last year and representing 5% of total FDI of Guangdong. FDI from USA reached 771 million USD and FDI from Japan amounted to 470 million USD. FDI from Australia and Korea also increased dramatically in recent years.
  

Overseas Tourism

• In 2002, Guangdong earned foreign currencies equal to 5.09 billion USD through international tourism, representing an increase of 14.38% comparing with the previous year and accounting for 24.97% of that of the country.
• In 2003, the foreign currencies earned by tourism amounted to 4.27 billion USD, a 16.2% decrease due to the impact of SARS. During the whole year, 76.45 million foreign visitors entered PRC through the Customs of Guangdong. The tourist accommodation facilities entertained 11,969,600 foreign visitors in Guangdong. Outbound tourism continued to grow, 1.3 million people traveled abroad in 2003, an increasing of 6.5% comparing with the last year.

Regional Economic Cooperation

• CEPA and the Greater Pearl River Delta Economic Region
  Pearl River Delta of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao constitute the Greater Pearl River Delta Economic Region. In 2003, mainland China concluded the Closer Economic Partnership Agreement with Hong Kong and Macao separately. The governments in the three places reached a consensus that Guangdong would focus on manufactures, Hong Kong focus on modern services such as logistics, finance and trade and Macao focus on tourism and gambling, therefore the integration process of the regional economy in “the Greater Pearl River Delta” would be accelerated.
• China-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement and Guangdong
  China and ASEAN have concluded a comprehensive economic cooperation framework agreement and an “early harvest” agreement for trade in goods, implying a free trade area is to be formed soon. Considering the important geographical position of Guangdong between PRC and ASEAN, this has brought a broad prospect for Guangdong to develop economic cooperation with ASEAN.

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