Guangzhou's strong measures to cope with the impact of the international financial crisis have paid off. Despite its location in the Pearl River Delta, which is the region hardest hit by the financial crisis, Guangzhou's economy has not only strongly bounded but also scaled a new high since the advent of the crisis.
A series of data which have recently been released show that Guangzhou's GDP broke the RMB 900 billion mark in 2009 after hitting RMB 600 billion, RMB 700 billion and RMB 800 billion in the past three years, respectively, indicating that the city's economy has experienced a "V"-shape turn.
To cope with the financial crisis, Guangzhou has taken three major steps: First, the city has progressively phased out the secondary industry and switched the focus to the tertiary industry. Second, the city has made strong efforts to turn leading enterprises and mega-projects into "engines" of economic growth and to push the manufacturing industry to the high-end of the market. Third, indigenous innovation has replaced productive factors to become the predominant driving force for economic growth.
Guangzhou has taken advantage of the pressure of the international financial crisis of the local market to phase out backward productive forces, making room for growth of leading enterprises and mega-products, and stepping up the establishment of a modern industrial system.
At present, Guangzhou's technology-intensive emerging industries, including software, electrical automation, biopharmaceuticals and fine chemicals, are growing by leaps and bounds. In the first eleven months of last year, the city's high-tech industries surged 17.5 percents, 8.1 percentage points higher than the growth rate of the city's industrial output. |
