SZ GDP estimated to reach ¥3T

Writer: Han Ximin  |  Editor: Holly Wang  |  From: Shenzhen Daily  |  Updated: 2022-01-28

Shenzhen's gross domestic product (GDP) in 2021 was estimated to reach a new high of 3 trillion yuan (US$474.48 billion), as stated in a Spring Festival holiday letter to the public by the city leaders.

In the letter released online Tuesday, Shenzhen Party chief Wang Weizhong and Mayor Qin Weizhong said that the city’s new achievement was made amid handling severe and complicated external environments, and COVID resurging.

The year 2021 was a milestone for the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the country, a year of significant reform and opening up, and the city’s innovation-driven development, the letter read. Shenzhen’s glamor, vitality, dynamics and innovation were enhanced in 2021 with the construction of the pilot demonstration area for socialism with Chinese characteristics, implementation of comprehensive reform pilot programs and the expansion of the Qianhai free trade area, among others. The annual Shenzhen Global Investment Promotion Conference, for example, has attracted investments amounting to 2.1 trillion yuan in three years since its inception in 2019.

When the special economic zone was established in 1980, the city’s GDP was 270 million yuan. In 2010, it went up to 1 trillion yuan and then 2 trillion yuan in 2016.

In 2021, Shanghai and Beijing became the first cities in China with GDP both reaching the 4-trillion-yuan milestone. According to Shenzhen’s 14th Five-Year Plan, the city’s GDP will reach the 4-trillion-yuan benchmark by 2025.

In the Shenzhen Metropolis Circle, Dongguan’s GDP has reached 1 trillion yuan, while Huizhou’s GDP is approaching the 500-billion-yuan benchmark. If Heyuan and Shanwei are included in the figures, the metropolis circle’s total GDP in 2021 is estimated to exceed 4.7 trillion yuan.

Shenzhen’s GDP in 2021 took the lead in Guangdong Province, followed by Guangzhou with 2.82 trillion yuan, as well as Foshan and Dongguan whose GDPs were expected to reach 1 trillion yuan.

According to Guangdong’s 14th Five-Year Plan, the province is moving to seek balanced integrated development and will form an urban development pattern called One Cluster and Five Circles, namely the Pearl River Delta world-level city cluster and the Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Pearl River West Bank, Shantou-Chaozhou-Jieyang and Zhanjiang-Maoming metropolis circles.