On November 28th, the Guangdong Provincial People's Government News Office heldthe "Guangdong Achievements of the '14th Five-Year Plan'" press conference, to introduce the situation of Guangdong's promotion of high-level opening up in the "14th Five-Year Plan" period. This press conference is the second in the series of theme press conferences on "Guangdong Achievements of the '14th Five-Year Plan'", hosted by Deng Hong, Deputy Director of the Guangdong Provincial People's Government News Office.
Guangdong is committed tothe "five foreign-related" combination
Deng Hong introduced that during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, Guangdong has thoroughly implemented the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping's important exposition on opening up to the outside world, focused on the "five foreign" linkage, which includes foreign trade, foreign investment, foreign contracting, foreign affairs, and foreign intelligence, and has made solid progress in promoting Guangdong's high-level opening up to the outside world, thus providing a strong support for Guangdong to take the lead in the construction of Chinese-style modernization.
Guangdong's import and export scalehas been at the top of the country for 39 consecutive years
Zhang Jinsong, director of the Guangdong Provincial Department of Commerce, introduced that during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, Guangdong has promoted high-level opening-up by taking "Five Foreign-related linkages" as the traction. The implementation of the provincial party committee's "1310" specific deployment and related policy documents has significantly improved the level of open-type economy, injecting strong impetus into the high-quality development of the whole province. Foreign trade has continued to reach new highs. In the first four years of the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the annual growth rate of the province's foreign trade import and export volume was 6.5%, and the scale has been the first in the country for 39 consecutive years, successively stepping onto the 8 trillion and 9 trillion yuan levels, reaching 7.8 trillion yuan in the first 10 months of this year. The trade structure has been continuously optimized, with the proportion of foreign trade import and export by private enterprises increasing to 63.6%. New business forms and new momentum such as cross-border e-commerce and the "New Three" have grown rapidly, cultivating and forming a number of trillion-level, hundred billion-level, and billion-level export industrial clusters, and the balance of import and export has been significantly enhanced. Foreign capital has maintained stable development, with the actual use of foreign capital stable at over 100 billion yuan per year. Through measures such as "top leader" investment promotion and the creation of the "Invest in Guangdong" brand, landmark projects such as BASF have been attracted to land, and the proportion of foreign capital in the manufacturing industry has risen to 30%. Strengthening the open platform, the Jieyang and Huadu Economic Development Zones have successfully been upgraded to national-level economic development zones. Outsourcing has been upgraded, and service trade has developed rapidly. The construction of three national service outsourcing demonstration cities, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Foshan, has been promoted, and the scale of the province's digital trade has exceeded 680 billion yuan in 2024. Foreign-related economy has been optimized, and international cooperation in the industrial and supply chains has been continuously deepened. In the first four years of the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the annual growth rate of the province's foreign direct investment was 7.4%, and the scale remained the first in the country.
Foreign brains are accelerating their convergence, international innovation cooperation has yielded fruitful results, the implementation of the reward policy for foreign-funded R&D centers has been rewarded, and a total of 561 foreign-funded R&D institutions have been introduced, with a total R&D investment of $18.75 billion. Deepening the cooperation in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, we have taken the lead in expanding the opening-up of the professional services industry to Hong Kong and Macao, and 26 types of professionals, such as architects and engineers, can practice after registration. The pilot free trade zone has taken the lead in demonstrating institutional opening-up, and new steps have been taken in institutional opening-up. The 33 tasks of the pilot program for institutional opening-up in accordance with international high standards have been fully implemented, and we have fully guaranteed the smooth implementation of the line management of the Hengqin-Hong Kong-Macao Deep Cooperation Zone, and efficiently served the "Macao cars to the north" and "Hong Kong cars to the north".
Guangdong has successfully cultivated2 trillion-level export industry clusters
Sun Bin, deputy director of the Guangdong Provincial Department of Commerce, said that during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the total import and export volume of Guangdong's foreign trade has successively stepped onto the 8 trillion and 9 trillion yuan platforms, and is expected to remain the top in the country for 40 consecutive years. Guangdong has successfully cultivated two trillion-level export industry clusters, including electronic information and modern light industry, and promoted the export of AI products to break through 500 billion yuan. Eight thousand-billion-level and five hundred-billion-level export industry clusters have been formed, including lithium batteries, electric vehicles, and photovoltaic products, which are the "new three" with an average annual growth rate of 33.1% in exports, becoming a vivid microcosm of Guangdong's foreign trade climbing to the upstream of the value chain. Relying on the Canton Fair, which has cumulatively achieved a turnover of 55.7 billion US dollars, nearly a thousand exhibitions have been held through the "Yue Trade Global" plan, supporting more than 100,000 enterprises to go global. The upcoming 2025 Global Smart Machinery and Electronics Products Expo will further build a business opportunity docking platform.
Strengthen the three national import demonstration zones of Nansha, Huangpu, and Qianhai, and lay out six major import bases, including bulk commodities and electronic components, to achieve an import volume of over 900 billion yuan in 2024, contributing more than half of the growth in imports for the province. Cross-border e-commerce pilot zones have been established in 21 cities and prefectures, and 168 e-commerce industrial parks have been built. In 2024, the total import and export volume of cross-border e-commerce in our province reached 746.2 billion yuan, accounting for nearly 40 percent of the country. Support leading foreign trade enterprises to become stronger and better, and promote the digital transformation of more than 100,000 small and medium-sized foreign trade enterprises.
