Dongguan is building the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (“GBA”) world-class city cluster together with Hong Kong, Macao, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and other cities. The GBA is an A-shaped area on the map while Dongguan is a key node there. Facing Shenzhen and Hong Kong with Guangzhou in the back, Dongguan is only city in China that is surrounded by three first-tier cities (i.e. Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Guangzhou). Three of the passages linking the eastern and western coasts of the GBA are situated in Dongguan. Going forward, 17 rail transit routes will be planned to seamlessly connect the city with Guangzhou and Shenzhen. From Dongguan, you can reach Guangzhou, Shenzhen or Hong Kong in just over 30 minutes, and such positional advantage is unique in China.
With 2,460 square kilometers of land area and up to 10.47 million of permanent population, Dongguan is the third city in the province to have a population of over 10 million, ranking second among the 14th megacities in China. As the local population increases, market entities there also multiply. Compared to a decade ago, the number of market entities in Dongguan increased by 900,000 (or 1.8 times), reaching 1.48 million in total. There are more than 12,000 foreign-funded enterprises and total foreign trade in the city surpassed 1.5 trillion yuan, ranking it among the top nationally by overall foreign trade competitiveness. For more than 40 years since China’s reform and opening-up, Dongguan has established economic and trade ties with 200 plus countries and regions. 86 of the Fortune 500 enterprises have invested in Dongguan, making the city one of the best destinations for multinational companies to invest in China. Consequently, Dongguan generates nearly 1% of the national GDP with less than 0.03% of the country’s land. The city also ranks among the top three in China in terms of GDP per square kilometer of land, second only to Shenzhen and Shanghai. In 2021, Dongguan record GDP of 1.0855 trillion yuan, thus becoming one of the cities with an annual GDP of more than one trillion yuan and a population of over 10 million.
