Guangdong opens door wider to economic growth

South China's Guangdong province will steadily expand institutional opening-up, align with high-standard international economic and trade rules, and promote trade and investment liberalization and facilitation in the months to come, the province's top official said.

"Reform and opening-up to the outside world are distinct symbols of Guangdong province," said Huang Kunming, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee.

"We are steadfast in comprehensively deepening reform, focusing on constructing a high-level socialist market economy system and striving to remove deep-seated institutional obstacles that affect our development," he said at the opening ceremony of the 2023 World Guangdong Entrepreneurs Convention in Guangzhou, the provincial capital, on Friday.

"Guangdong will continue to deepen reform and open its door wider and further to create a market-oriented, rule-based and internationalized first-class business environment in the following months," said Huang, also Party secretary of Guangdong province.

Many investment and business opportunities have been created as Guangdong accelerates the construction of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

According to Huang, the GBA which includes nine Guangdong cities plus the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions achieved a GDP of 13 trillion yuan ($1.78 trillion) last year, making it the 10th-largest economy in the world and becoming an important economic growth engine in the country.

Guangdong's GDP has ranked first in the country for 34 consecutive years, he said.

The province, with more than 70,000 industrial enterprises above a designated size, nearly another 70,000 new and high-tech companies and 19 Fortune Global 500 enterprises, has formed eight industrial clusters, with each reaching industrial production of more than 8 trillion yuan, making a solid industrial system.

Huang praised the role that Guangdong entrepreneurs and business representatives have played in the province's economic development in the previous years.

Guangdong entrepreneurs and business representatives are witnesses, participants and beneficiaries of the province's economic wonder — they are a contributing force in Guangdong's development and an important link connecting Guangdong to the world, he said.

Huang expects that Guangdong's entrepreneurs and business people will actively participate in the province's high-quality development, technological innovation and construction, making the province a strong manufacturing powerhouse in the months to come.

Xu Lejiang, executive vice-chairman of the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, said Guangdong entrepreneurs and business people have become a very important group in the Chinese business community and a valuable asset in promoting Guangdong's economic development.