After more than 40 years of reform and opening-up, Dongguan has created an open, inclusive, market-based, and internationalized business environment based on the rule of law. Awarded the Best City for Investment by Multinationals and Charming China’s Most Promising City, Dongguan has been selected as a “new first-tier city” for five years running. It ranks first among all prefecture-level cities by the health index for government-business relations for 3 consecutive years, and third nationally in science and technology competitiveness.
Dongguan possesses complete industrial supporting capabilities. Through years of development, Dongguan has built a complete industrial manufacturing foundation and strong industrial comprehensive supporting capabilities sufficient to meet the development needs of various industries. There are now approximately 200,000 industrial enterprises, including more than 11,000 industrial enterprises above the designated size, the largest number of all Chinese cities. Over the years, Dongguan has gradually formed a relatively complete manufacturing system covering 60,000-odd products in 34 industries. Except for special industries such as the war and nuclear sectors, the majority of the industries can find their supporting industries right here in Dongguan. Standing at a new starting point, Dongguan is crying for a large number of advanced technologies, high-quality capital, and top talents to sustain its future development. Going forward, we will focus on “sci-tech innovation + advanced manufacturing” to build the advanced manufacturing center of the GBA area. We will target the seven strategic emerging sectors to foster new drivers for high-quality development. These sectors are new-generation electronic information, high-end equipment, intelligent manufacturing, new energy, new materials, biomedicine, and digital economy; all of them enjoy good industrial foundation in Dongguan.
The next-generation information technology. As the No. 1 pillar industry of Dongguan, the electronic information sector contributed 159.2 billion yuan as value added of industrial enterprises above the designated size in 2021, accounting for 31.8% of the city’s total industrial value added. The gross output value of the industry approached one trillion yuan, nearly one quarter of the province’s total. Home to a host of leading enterprises including Huawei, OPPO, vivo, Huabei Electronic Technology, Lens Technology, and Shengyi Technology, Dongguan has formed a complete industrial system ranging from basic parts to end-product manufacturing, and from consumer products to investment products. The overall matching rate is as high as 90%. One out of every five smart phones in the world comes from Dongguan. In April 2021, Dongguan Smart Mobile Terminal Industry Cluster was successfully selected as one of the first national advanced manufacturing clusters.
High-end equipment manufacturing. As Dongguan’s second pillar industry, high-end equipment manufacturing generated a total output value of 370 billion yuan in 2021. So far, there are more than 400 intelligent manufacturing equipment enterprises in the city, employing over 50,000 people. Dongguan’s intelligent manufacturing industry has also seen gradually improved ecological system, from upstream controllers, encoders, sensors among other key parts and components, to midstream robot arms and complete machines, and to downstream system integration. A number of excellent enterprises have emerged in the industry, such as Topstar, Tianji Robot, QKM, OPT, Alfa Robot, UCAN and Taikan.
New materials. After years of exploration, new materials enterprises and research institutions in Dongguan have laid a sound industrial foundation in metal alloys, functional glass, polymer composites, copper-clad plates, gallium nitride substrates, and other areas. For instance, Shengyi Technology’s total sales of rigid copper-clad plates ranks second in the world; liquid metals produced by Eontec have become a technologically leading flagship product in the industry, with the company itself becoming a tier-one supplier for Tesla. In 2021, the value added of new material enterprises above the designated size increased to 41.5 billion yuan from 18.96 billion yuan in 2017.
New energy. Dongguan has laid a sound foundation in consumer batteries and hydrogen energy resources, with an industrial cluster of nearly 100 billion yuan. In terms of lithium battery, in particular, the city has more than 130 enterprises scattered along the industrial chain. All of the four major materials needed for battery production, i.e. anode material, cathode material, electrolyte and film, can be sourced here in the city. Dongguan ranks among the top in China in both the technology and scale of lithium equipment manufacturing. It also has the second largest output of lithium batteries for consumer electronics. Two of the world’s leading enterprises in the area, Amperex Technology Limited and Dongguan NVT Technology Co., Ltd., are located in the city. As for hydrogen energy resources, so far, Dongguan has basically formed the industrial chain of hydrogen fuel-cell enterprises that spans from hydrogen production, hydrogen fuel-cell equipment, construction and operation of hydrogen refueling stations, and finished automobile manufacturing. Dongguan Grand Resource Science & Technology Co., Ltd. is the largest project to produce high performance polypropylene through propane hydrogenation in South China. Its industrial by-product hydrogen can meet the demand of 500,000 hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles in a year. As long as a reasonable hydrogen refuel station network is built in Dongguan, we can realize free travel between the GBA cities without relying on hydrogen supplement from other cities. In this sense, hydrogen energy industry in Dongguan has broad market prospects.
Biomedicine and high-end medical equipment. The biomedicine industry in Dongguan started relatively early and enjoys a sound industrial foundation. An industrial cluster around Songshan Lake has now been formed, bringing together 400 or so enterprises. Among them, key enterprises such as HEC Group and Zhongsheng Pharma play an important role in sustaining the industry, while Fapon Biotech Inc. and other high-potential enterprises are developing rapidly. In the area of basic research, China’s first accelerator-based facility for boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) was successfully developed in Songshan Lake in August 2020, marking a breakthrough in the development of anticancer technology in China. BNCT provides one of the most advanced cancer treatments in the world.
Semiconductors and integrated circuits. At present, Dongguan houses more than 120 relevant enterprises, basically forming an industrial chain structure with integrated circuit design, packaging & testing, and third-generation semiconductors at the core, and integrated circuit equipment, raw materials and their application as the support. In particular, Dongguan enjoys obvious advantages in such areas as semiconductor material, chip design, packaging and testing, as demonstrated by a number of renowned enterprises, including Nexperia, UTAC, Sino Nitride, and Tianyu. In 2020, the industry recorded business revenue of about 22.7 billion yuan, up by 10.8% from the previous year; in the first half of 2021, total revenue in the industry increased by more than 28.3%, reaching about 13.2 billion yuan.
Digital economy. Dongguan has more than 1,000 data service and big data integration and application enterprises. The city also houses 50 science and technology institutions dedicated to technical research, consultation and supervision such as the CAS’s Cloud Computing Center, and a number of provincial-level big data entrepreneurship & innovation incubator parks, such as Guangda We Valley Industrial Park, and Gosun Science Park. In the industrial internet sector, there are 23 provincial benchmarking projects across the city; 18 institutions have been included as part of the industrial internet industry ecological supply resource pool of Guangdong Province. Among them, Pangus Information and other suppliers are capable of providing services to national projects. Each year, 190,000 industrial enterprises in Dongguan spend nearly 20 billion yuan on digitalization and informatization, which speaks for the huge potential and great prospect of the digital industry.
Arguably, Dongguan has the foundation, market and prospect for developing strategic emerging industries. We hope that you can join us in strengthening, supplementing and extending the industrial chains to accelerate the building of advantageous industrial clusters with global influence and competiveness.
Dongguan boasts abundant elements of innovation. As the GBA’s important base for “Sci-tech Innovation + Advanced Manufacturing”, Dongguan has preliminarily created the four major innovation systems of source innovation, technological innovation, achievement transformation, and enterprise cultivation. The 90.52-square-kilometer Songshan Lake Science Park, constructed relying on major scientific and technological infrastructure such as China Spallation Neutron Source (CSNS), the Southern Advanced Photon Source (SAPS), and Advanced Attosecond Laser Facility, has been listed as a pilot area of the Greater Bay Area Comprehensive National Science Center, and fully launched. Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory, with Academician Wang Enge serving as the chairman, is one of Guangdong’s first provincial-level laboratories. It has a research team of more than 800 people. Among them, in excess of 50 academicians, experts, and 400 renowned Chinese and foreign scientists conduct scientific research, innovation and entrepreneurship in Dongguan on a regular basis. At present, Dongguan has 7,387 high-tech enterprises, ranking first among prefecture-level cities in China. There are 79 national “little giant” enterprises (i.e. industry-leading enterprises, as well as top-notch, specialized, and innovation-driven enterprises), ranking fifth in China and second in the province, and 91 provincial and municipal innovative research teams, ranking first among prefecture-level cities in the province for 10 consecutive years. In addition, we have established 32 new-type research institutes with China’s best universities, including Peking University and Tsinghua University. Such innovation elements provide enabling conditions for the development of strategic emerging industries. On this basis, Dongguan is taking solid steps toward the goal of building the GBA’s innovation hub with global influence.
Dongguan provides strong manpower support. Dongguan is one of the Chinese cities with the highest proportion of migrant population. According to a report released by Baidu Map, Dongguan’s population attraction index in 2020 ranked third in China. As the population increases, population structure has also been continuously improved. Of the total 2.584 million talents, there are more than 183,000 high-level talents, more than 5 million skilled industrial workers, and up to 1.25 million technical talents. To create a more favorable environment for talents, we launched the hundred, thousand, and ten thousand talents projects across the board, introducing targeted policies to reward talent introduction, provide affordable housing for talents, increase the capacity and improve the quality of education, and ensure medical and health care. So far, Dongguan has 542 elementary and middle schools, 53 regular senior secondary schools, and 9 regular higher educational institutions with 139,300 students. There are 3,434 medical institutions across the city, including 7 Grade A Class 3 hospitals. High-level hospitals have also constructed through partnership with Ji’an University, Sothern Medical University and Guangdong Medical University. In the coming five years, the municipal government will allocate 30 billion yuan to build, upgrade, and expand 229 public elementary and middle schools, providing an additional 340,000 school places. 52,000 affordable housing units for talents will also be coordinated and a number of joint-ownership housing units will be launched to meet the need of all kinds of talents. At the same time, we will work hard to improve health care, recreation and entertainment, and remove talents of their worries and concerns in life and at work, eventually providing them with a comfortable living environment and favorable working climate where they can give full play to their talents.
Dongguan enjoys obvious cost advantages. Compared to other GBA cities, the price of industrial land in Dongguan is one third of that in Shenzhen, and two thirds of that in Guangzhou; the average price of commercial service land is one fourth of that in Shenzhen and half of that in Guangzhou; the rent for Grade-A offices in Dongguan is one third of that in Shenzhen and two fifths of that in Guangzhou. Dongguan’s actual wage level for the manufacturing industry is also lower than that of Shenzhen and Guangzhou. Therefore, it can be said that Dongguan enjoys the location of a first-tier city but the cost of a second-tier city.
Dongguan boasts complete supportive policies. In terms of industry funds, we have set up a 10 billion yuan guidance fund for strategic emerging industries to engage the participation of financial, industrial and other private capital, forming a 50 billion yuan parent-child fund group for these industries. With regard to policy support, we created the “1+N” policy system for strategic emerging industries, according to which a newly introduced strategic emerging industry project that meets the requirements will receive a maximum reward of 100 million yuan, and a newly introduced high-quality enterprise in the investment catalogue of strategic emerging industries will receive a reward equivalent to 100% of its local economic contribution in the year for three consecutive years. Moreover, in the principle of “industry base-specific policies”, each industry base will adopt its own measures to promote high-quality development in the base, providing more precise and customized policy support. For example, in the Industry Base for Integrated Development of the Digital Economy, each key digital industry project with investment of over 300 million yuan will be rewarded at 2% of the fixed asset investment completed before 2023, up to a maximum of 20 million yuan. In the Eastern Intelligent Manufacturing Industrial Base, when an intelligent manufacturing enterprise obtains import discounts from the central or municipal government for importing core technologies and key equipment, a supporting reward will be provided according to the ratio of 1 to 0.5, up to a maximum of 5 million yuan a year. In the Yinping High-End Equipment Industrial Base, a qualified enterprise will receive up to 5% of its year-on-year revenue increase as reward, for a maximum of 5 million yuan a year. To support the development of foreign-funded enterprises, in addition to the maximum 100-million-yuan reward from the provincial finance, the municipal finance will provide a supporting reward according to the ratio of 1:0.5. After settling in Dongguan, a foreign-invested equity investment fund will receive a settle-in reward of up to 10 million yuan. When the contribution of foreign-funded headquarters or regional headquarters of a foreign multinational company to the municipal finance exceeds 100 million yuan for the first time, the municipal finance will provide a reward at 20% of its contribution to the municipal finance in the year, up to a maximum of 20 million yuan. For headquarter enterprises, a comprehensive headquarter enterprise moving to Dongguan will receive a one-time reward of up to 100 million yuan, 40% of which will be given directly to its senior executives. For any of its new projects, reward will be provided at 1% of the actual investment amount up to a maximum of 20 million yuan. Reward to excellent talent teams will be as follows: Each team of strategic scientists will receive a subsidy of up to 150 million yuan; each special talent in urgent need will receive a housing subsidy of up to 10 million yuan, plus a living allowance of up to 350,000 yuan; overseas high-end talents and urgently-needed talents who have paid more than 15% of their taxable income will receive full amount of the excess as the subsidy. And there are many other policies providing the same level of support. We look forward to further deepening exchanges with you to achieve win-win cooperation.
Dongguan offers efficient government services. As one of the first pilot cities of commercial system reform in China, Dongguan has continued to deepen the reform over the years, becoming a wonderful and vivid epitome of the country’s commercial system reform. We are striving to provide the highest degree of convenience and best government services commensurate with a first-class GBA. In October 2019, the Dongguan Citizen Service Center was up and running with 50 government departments setting up 270 counters (including 151 comprehensive service counters) there providing 2,711 service items. Many government services are available including the starting of a business. Of all the government service halls in the province, Dongguan Citizen Service Center features the most government departments, the most service items and the most integrated comprehensive service counter. Up to 91% of the administrative license items can be handled online; 91.8% of the items are completed at a time. Moreover, we are working to reduce the time limits for approval, cutting the time for approving items related to the establishment of a business to one working day, the time for obtaining the property ownership certificate to just 20 minutes, and the time for approving the expansion project of large enterprise to four days from the previous three months.
On top of all that, hailed as an international garden city by the United Nations, Dongguan is endowed with all kinds of mountains, forests, lake and seas, and 37.4% of its land is covered with forests. The city is home to thousands of kilometers of ecological reserves, 6 natural reserves, 21 forest parks, 25 wetland parks, and 1,223 urban parks. 86.3% of the days in Dongguan enjoy good air quality. As such, Dongguan has become a great city for enterprises to invest in and start a business. We warmly welcome German enterprises to participate in the construction of Dongguan. Regarding high quality enterprises as the backbone of Dongguan’s economy and talents as the valuable resources sustaining Dongguan’s development, we will spare no effort in providing enterprises and professionals investing and starting businesses in Dongguan with the best environment, the most considerate services and the most favorable policies. Let’s joint hands to open up new opportunities for win-win cooperation.
