The once scenic but sleepy town of Huizhou in Guangdong Province is poised to benefit from its recent high-tech developments and links across the region. A Chamber delegation visited the town on 14-15 December to learn about the city’s rapid growth, innovative industries and deepening cooperation with Hong Kong.
Huizhou, one of the cities in the Greater Bay Area (GBA) initiative, lies in the south-east of the province, and is known as the gateway to eastern Guangdong.
“Huizhou used to be tranquil, relaxing and far away from the hustle and bustle,” said mission leader and Chairman of the China Committee PC Yu.“However, the mission showed us the vitality and vigour of the city, which has managed to preserve its profound culture and beautiful ecosystem while helping many entrepreneurs realize their dreams.”
In 2016, Huizhou’s GDP grew 8.2% year-on-year to some 340 billion renminbi (US$52 billion), ranking it fifth among 21 cities in Guangdong. It is primarily an export-oriented economy, with a focus on high-tech industries as well as services and tourism. The GBA initiative is expected to give a further boost to the city’s development.
Key to nurturing industries in the city are the two national-level development zones – the Huizhou Daya Bay Economic and Technological Development Zone and the Huizhou Zhongkai Hi-tech Industrial Development Zone.
Such support has encouraged many businesses, including Hong Kong companies, to open bases in Huizhou. Biel Crystal, for instance, with close to 90,000 local employees, provides job opportunities and is helping to modernize manufacturing across the region. The company makes a variety of items with a focus on glass products for high-end smartphones and luxury watches.
Another Hong Kong company in Huizhou, Nameson Group, is a leading knitwear manufacturer in China, with most of its production for export.
The city’s China-Korea Industrial Park has also attracted a number of Korean enterprises, which have helped drive Huizhou’s technological advancement.
Mayor Mai Jiaomeng said the city will leverage the GBA initiative to strengthen its cooperation with Hong Kong and build Huizhou into a hub connecting Guangdong with the neighbouring Fujian and Jiangxi provinces. Mai added that development is aimed at creating a green, low-carbon and technologically innovative city.
Huizhou is also playing its part to facilitate faster and more efficient travel in the region, as Liu Zhihong, Deputy Director of the Bureau of Commerce of Huizhou Municipality, explained.
“With improvement of the transport network across the GBA, the ‘one-hour living circle’ will be realized soon,” Liu said. “Given that the total area of Huizhou accounts for one-fifth of Guangdong, and only 9% of the land has been developed so far, there is ample room for development.”
The total population of the GBA is almost 67 million, higher than the Tokyo Bay Area, the world’s largest city cluster with a population of 44 million. The aggregate GDP of the GBA amounted to US$1.34 trillion, only behind the New York Bay Area (US$1.7 trillion) and the Tokyo Bay Area (US$1.78 trillion).
Yu said that the Chamber welcomes the GBA initiative and pointed out that Hong Kong and Guangdong have long been closely interlinked.
“Over the past 40 years, Hong Kong has made significant investments in Guangdong,” he said. “The two places are interdependent and complementary to each other. Currently, the economic scale of the GBA is comparable to the other major bay areas in the world. Cooperation between Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao is expected to deepen.”