Qianhai achieves staggering development over past decade

The skyline of Qianhai in 2020. Qianhai Authority

The Qianhai Shenzhen-Hong Kong Modern Service Industry Cooperation Zone has made all-round achievements over the past decade, a press conference was told Friday morning.

Qianhai has reported an annual growth of 89.2 percent in the added value of the enterprises registered in the free trade area over the past decade. The free trade area was ranked first in the country last year in terms of GDP per square kilometer at 15.26 billion yuan (US$2.2 billion). Qianhai’s actual used overseas investment reached US$4.1 billion yuan in 2019, ranking No. 2 among the country’s free trade zones and areas, after Shanghai free trade zone. The amount accounted for 53.3 percent of Shenzhen’s total, 20.5 percent of Guangdong’s total and 3 percent of the national total.

According to Tian Fu, director of the Authority of China (Guangdong) Pilot Free Trade Zone Qianhai and Shekou Area, Qianhai has made breakthroughs in six major areas: Shenzhen-Hong Kong cooperation, institutional innovation, modern service industry development, regional collaborative innovation and opening up, urban construction and Party construction.

As of June, Qianhai had about 11,700 Hong Kong-funded enterprises, with a total registered capital of 1.31 trillion yuan. Qianhai has used US$20.3 billion of Hong Kong funds, accounting for 89.9 percent of the total overseas capital used by the free trade area.

Over the past 10 years, Qianhai has made 573 institutional innovations in a variety of fields including trade and investment facilitation, the opening up of the financial market and fintech innovation, as well as the construction of a rule-of-law environment.

A high-end modern service industry system that integrates finance, high technology and real economy has also been built in Qianhai. The free trade area now has a number of new-type financial institutions such as WeBank, the country’s first Internet-only private bank, and 11 other unicorn enterprises such as YH Global.

In terms of regional collaborative innovation and opening up, Qianhai initiated the National Free Trade Area Innovation Alliance last year to share achievements in institutional innovation and strengthen communications among the country’s 47 free trade zones and areas.