Foshan and Dongguan are at the same starting line again
Foshan and Dongguan met at the GDP trillion club.
On January 7, Foshan held the first meeting of deputies to the 16th National People’s Congress. It was mentioned at the meeting that Foshan’s GDP will reach more than 1.16 trillion yuan in 2021, and the GDP growth rate is expected to reach 8% – 8.5%. The goal of 2022 is to increase GDP by about 6%. It is planned that by the end of the 14th five year plan, the GDP of Foshan will reach 1.5 trillion yuan.
Dongguan, which ranks close to Foshan in the province, also announced its “report card”. On January 5, the 15th Party Congress was held in Dongguan. It was revealed that Dongguan’s GDP is preliminarily expected to exceed trillion yuan in 2021.
This means that both Dongguan and Foshan have entered trillion clubs and are on the same starting line again.
As a big manufacturing city, the GDP of Foshan and Dongguan was very close, with a gap of only 20 billion yuan. However, after the 2008 financial crisis, the gap between the two cities opened. In the following ten years, Foshan continued to make efforts and Dongguan continued to catch up. However, under the influence of the epidemic, the gap between the two cities was opened again. Foshan reached a new level of trillion GDP, while Dongguan was a little late.
Now, Foshan and Dongguan finally meet again in the trillion club. After stepping onto a new level, both cities aim at the goal of an average annual GDP growth rate of 6% during the 14th Five Year Plan period.
A new round of long-distance running of “the third city” in Guangdong has begun.
“In the past two years, Foshan may still remain in the lead.” Peng Peng, executive chairman of Guangdong Institute of system reform, analyzed to the reporter of times weekly that Dongguan’s industrial structure has been updated and more synchronized with the development of the world. There are more high-tech enterprises and a higher degree of innovation of listed companies. “By the 16th five year plan, there will be a struggle between the two cities.”
two sides of coin
Foshan and Dongguan are like two sides of a coin, with similarities and differences coexisting.
It is also a prefecture level city in Guangdong; It is adjacent to strong city – Foshan is adjacent to Guangzhou and Dongguan is adjacent to Shenzhen; Both are manufacturing cities: Foshan is known as “made in Foshan when there is a home”, and Dongguan is known as “world factory”.
In terms of development model, there are differences between the two cities. Foshan has bred famous local enterprises such as Midea, Galanz, Haitian and Dongpeng. It is an endogenous development model with relatively complete industrial chain and mainly relying on domestic demand. Dongguan makes its fortune by undertaking the industrial transfer from Hong Kong and abroad. It is an export-oriented development model vulnerable to the international market environment.
This difference is reflected in the GDP gap between Dongguan and Foshan: sometimes narrowed and sometimes expanded.
However, the “third city in Guangdong” has always been fierce.
Before 2003, Dongguan’s GDP was only half that of Foshan. Then Dongguan suddenly emerged, and the GDP growth rate exceeded that of Foshan several times. In 2005, Dongguan entered the 200 billion yuan mark, reaching 218.244 billion yuan, narrowing the gap with Foshan (GDP of 237.980 billion yuan in 2015) to less than 20 billion yuan.
The financial crisis in 2008 affected the export-oriented development of Dongguan, and the GDP growth slowed down, and the growth rate fell from 14% to 5% the next year. Foshan, with endogenous development, remained stable in the financial crisis and still achieved a GDP growth rate of 13.5% in 2009.
Since then, the GDP gap between Foshan and Dongguan has remained at 100 billion yuan.
“Compared with Foshan, Dongguan is an export-oriented economy, which is greatly affected by the external environment.” Peng Peng believes that in the years after the financial crisis, the growth rate of foreign trade has slowed down greatly, and Dongguan bears the brunt among the affected cities.
Foshan sits firmly in the “third city of Guangdong”, which seems to be a foregone conclusion, but Dongguan is undergoing layout transformation.
In 2008, Dongguan put forward the “four resistances”, that is, the temporary pain, the temporary slowdown, the temporary reduction of income and the criticism of the society, so as to promote industrial transformation.
In the following 10 years, Dongguan undertook a large number of high-tech industries from Shenzhen, transformed from manufacturing to intelligent manufacturing, and gradually formed a modern industrial structure with electronic information manufacturing as the pillar and highlighting the advantages of advanced manufacturing, high-tech manufacturing and private economy. Well known brands such as Huawei, oppo and vivo have successively settled in Dongguan or grown up in Dongguan.
Foshan has always made steady progress, taking intelligent manufacturing as the main direction, and implemented the “100 enterprise intelligent manufacturing improvement project”. By 2017, the total output value of Foshan’s advanced manufacturing industry had reached 1.73 trillion yuan, accounting for 45.8% of the total output value of industries above designated size.
Since 2018, the situation has changed.
Dongguan, which has accumulated a lot and made little progress, saw a sharp rise in GDP growth in 2018, reaching 7.4%, surpassing Foshan (6.3% in 2018). In 2019, Dongguan maintained a GDP growth rate of 7.4% and pressed the first Bureau of Foshan (the GDP growth rate of Foshan in 2019 was 6.9%).
In 2019, Foshan became a trillion Club upstart and the third city in Guangdong Province with a GDP exceeding trillion after Guangzhou and Shenzhen. This is expected and in line with the impression of the outside world. In the same year, Dongguan’s GDP was 948.25 billion yuan, which was still close to the trillion club.
Under the influence of the epidemic in 2020, Dongguan’s exports and consumption are affected, and it is still regrettable to miss trillion GDP.
Foshan, under the trillion halo, is actually full of challenges.
Affected by the epidemic, the growth rate in Foshan was low in the first half of 2020, which raised concerns about “whether Foshan can stabilize trillion”. Among the major industrial products above Designated Size published in Foshan statistical bulletin in 2020, small household appliances, furniture, building materials and clothing made on behalf of Foshan account for half. The construction and consumer industries corresponding to these products are also affected by the epidemic. Foshan finally stabilized its trillion GDP, but the growth rate decreased to 1.6% from 6.9% in 2019.
Dongguan, which has experienced wind and rain, seems to be more experienced.
In 2020, although Dongguan failed to break the trillion yuan, its exports and consumption were particularly affected, but its response was more flexible: in 2020, the production of epidemic prevention materials in Dongguan increased steadily and rapidly, and the manufacturing of biological drug products, sanitary materials and medical supplies increased by 524.2% and 116.8% respectively; From January to November 2020, “soft industries” such as Internet, software and information technology services maintained rapid growth, driving the growth of service industries above Designated Size by 2.0 percentage points.
Data show that in the first three quarters of 2021, Dongguan’s GDP reached 769.462 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 9.1%, and the annual GDP is expected to exceed trillion yuan.
Peng Peng believes that Dongguan has recovered rapidly. First, affected by the epidemic, many export orders have been transferred to China. Second, Dongguan’s industrial transformation and upgrading, from “double transfer”, “cage replacement” to “machine replacement”, from “three supplies and one compensation” to “Introduction and digestion” and “brand building”, Dongguan’s brand has made a lot of progress. “But compared with Foshan, Dongguan is still absent from the world’s top 500.”
trillion new starting point
Dongguan, which has entered the ranks of trillion clubs, has reached the same starting line with Foshan.
Now, both cities have set the goal of an average annual GDP growth rate of 6% during the 14th Five Year Plan Period – Dongguan plans to reach about 1.3 trillion yuan by 2025, while Foshan plans to reach 1.5 trillion yuan.
How to achieve this goal? Both Foshan and Dongguan focus on innovation.
Foshan’s clear development goals are: the pole city in Dawan District, Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, the leader in high-quality development of prefecture level cities in the province, and the national manufacturing innovation center facing the world. Dongguan proposes to build a bay area innovation highland with global influence and a national advanced manufacturing capital led by scientific and technological innovation.
△ the buildings around Foshan Park and TV tower are the landmark buildings of Foshan. Source: Visual China Group Co.Ltd(000681)
To enhance innovation, the starting points of the two cities are slightly different.
Foshan chooses to “sort out the old paper” and optimize the spatial structure – promote the upgrading and transformation of village level industrial parks, and then plan to build a batch of modern theme industrial parks with an area of more than 1000 mu. Dongguan focuses on “making new paper”, such as Binhai bay new area.
In terms of capital investment, both cities choose to increase innovation. Foshan’s plan is that by 2025, the annual scientific research funds will exceed 1 billion yuan, and the average annual R & D investment will increase by 8%. Dongguan plans that R & D (Research and experimental development funds) will account for 3.2% of GDP, with 26.9 high-value invention patents per 10000 people, so as to build a national innovative city.
In addition, both cities aim at high Shenzhen New Industries Biomedical Engineering Co.Ltd(300832) .
Foshan should expand and strengthen two industrial clusters exceeding trillion yuan, optimize and refine two industrial clusters exceeding 500 billion yuan, and speed up the cultivation of four industrial clusters exceeding 300 billion yuan. Dongguan constructs a “Golden Triangle” based on the innovation leading pole of Songshan Lake high tech Zone, the service development pole of the central urban area and the opening and cooperation pole of Binhai bay new area, so as to drive industrial development with innovation.
Their neighbors came to help.
According to the “14th five year plan” for Guangzhou Foshan’s global urbanization (Draft for public comments), the GDP of Guangzhou Foshan is planned to exceed 5 trillion yuan in 2025; Achieve half-hour access to the central urban area of Guangfo and one hour access to the whole area.
Not only the “hard connection” of transportation, Guangfo will also create a spatial pattern of “one area, three axes and one ring”, connecting Foshan Chancheng, Nanhai, sanlongwan and other regions with Guangzhou, so as to make the barrier free flow of resources and factors.
Guangzhou Foshan Science and technology cooperation zone is also under exploration and construction. Guangzhou and Foshan will jointly promote the development of four trillion industrial clusters of advanced equipment manufacturing, automobile, new generation information technology, biomedicine and health industry.
Dongguan and Shenzhen are also further docking.
The Ministry of transport of Shenzhen clearly mentioned the interconnection of Shenzhen, Dongguan and Huizhou tracks, and plans to connect 8 tracks within 5 years, of which 5 are related to Dongguan. In the 14th five year plan of Shenzhen, it is also clearly proposed to cooperate with Dongguan and Huizhou to optimize the layout of industries, infrastructure and public services in Linshen area, and jointly build world-class advanced manufacturing industry clusters such as electronic information with global competitiveness.
Dongguan itself is also trying to integrate into Shenzhen. During the 14th Five Year Plan period, the southern towns connect with the innovation resources radiation of Shenzhen ocean new town, bright Science City, Shenzhen North Center and Longgang Pingshan East Center, strengthen the coordinated development of industrial innovation, layout the industrial chain around the innovation chain, deploy the innovation chain around the industrial chain, and create a Dongguan Shenzhen industrial integration and innovation belt.
(source: times weekly)
