Guangdong Market Opportunities - Urban Economies with Various Characteristics

Huizhou City

Huizhou City is located in the southeast part of Guangdong Province and adjacent to Hong Kong and Shenzhen City. It has a land area of 11,300 square kilometers and a population of 3.26 million. It is not only a famous cultural city, but also a tourist city and an important industrial base of Guangdong Province.

1. General Survey of Economic Development

Huizhou City is actively developing export-oriented economy; it is one of the most dynamic places in Guangdong in terms of foreign investment. In 2003, the city’s GDP reached RMB 59.097 billion, up by 13.9% compared with that of last year, ranking 7th in the province. Its total industrial output value was RMB 34.997 billion, up by 16.7%. The total import and export volume was US$ 13.13 billion, up by 17.0%, among which the export volume reached US$ 7.15 billion, up by 21.3%. Its actual utilized foreign capital was US$ 1.41 billion, up by 30.0%, ranking 4th provincially.

2. Unique Advantages and Development Characteristics

(1) Rich tourist resources. It has a beautiful landscape and 6 scenic spots and nature reserves of national and provincial level. In recent years, it was rewarded “Excellent Tourist City of China”, “Hygienic City of China”, “Garden City of China” and “Environment Protection Model City of China” successively.
(2) Huizhou City has a clear geographic superiority as it is adjacent to Hong Kong and Macao, and is only 130 kilometers away from Guangzhou and 80 kilometers from Shenzhen. Its infrastructure constructions of transportation, energy resources and telecommunication, etc. are highly complete. The Beijing-Kowloon Railway and Guangzhou-Meizhou-Shantou Railway run through this city. Furthermore, Huizhou has a military-civil airport and fine deepwater ports.
(3) An important manufacturing base of electronics and information technology industries. Huizhou has become an important manufacturing base of electronics and information technology industries in China and even in Asia, because it has more than 1,000 enterprises specializing in electronics and information technology, whose output accounts for nearly half of the total industrial output value. Its annual output volume of VCD, CD components (chips and laser heads) accounts for over 36% of the world’s total.
(4) Huizhou’s modernized world-class petrochemical city is soon to be completed. The CMOOC Shell Petrol-chemical Complex Project involving US$ 4.3 billion was launched 3 years ago. It is not only China’s biggest foreign invested project, but also China’s largest and most advanced petrochemical project. The Daya Bay, where the project is located, will soon be a modernized world-class petrochemical city. Through this project, Huizhou City has set up its development framework for the coming 100 years.