Zhaoqing – literally ‘source of fortuitousness’ – is located in the central-west part of Guangdong province. It has a total area of 14,891 sq km and had a permanent population of 4.12 million in 2017. Administratively, the city is divided into three districts (Duanzhou, Dinghu and Gaoyao) and four counties (Guangning, Deqing, Fengkai and Huaiji). Within Guangdong, Zhaoqing acts as a hub/gateway connecting the Pearl River Delta (PRD) region to China’s south-west region, a role in keeping with the national strategy of boosting “east-west connectivity”.
Major Development Areas
National level: Zhaoqing High-Tech Industrial Development Zone
Provincial level: Zhaoqing Industrial Park
Positioning
Zhaoqing has six key traditional industries – textiles and garments, food and beverages, furniture, building materials, metal products and home appliances. In total, these six industries contributed 33% of the city’s value-added industrial output in 2017.
Zhaoqing focuses on the development of new energy vehicles industry, advanced equipment manufacturing, energy conservation and environmental protection, high-end new electronic information and biomedicine. It is also proactively developing three industrial clusters valued over RMB100 billion on new energy vehicles, advanced equipment manufacturing, energy conservation and environmental protection.
Core Competencies
The city is also looking to promote cloud computing, big data and industrial robotics in order to boost the smart capabilities of its manufacturing sector and as part of its overall technological upgrade process. Plans are also in place to nurture a number of industrial clusters in several different sectors, including car parts and components, environmental protection equipment and intelligent equipment. It is anticipated that each of these clusters will eventually be worth hundreds of billions of yuan.
In the agriculture sector, Zhaoqing’s Huaiji county is one of Guangdong’s primary grain production bases. In order to further develop this resource, the 13th Five-Year Plan stresses the importance of adopting the “internet + agriculture” production and operational mode. In a further move, the development of online sales, initially focusing on speciality agricultural by-products, will also be prioritised. This is seen as essential if Zhaoqing is to evolve into a modern agricultural demonstration zone in addition to its role as an organic produce transaction hub for the PRD city cluster.
In a further move, Zhaoqing will also look to actively develop new consumption formats and modes, with a particular emphasis on sports, healthcare, leisure and travel, and green food.
Zhaoqing is the “home of gold” of Guangdong. The gold mines are mainly in Gaoyao District, Huaiji County, and Fengkai County. Nonmetallic mines include limestones for cement, limestones for flux, gypsum, granite for overcoating, granite for construction, porcelain clay, ink-stone, mineral water, geothermal water, etc. Inkstone is a unique ornamental stone in Zhaoqing, and “duanyan” ranks first among the four famous inkstones in China. In 2004, Zhaoqing was named the “capital of inkstones in China”.
Foreign investor preferential policy measures
- The infrastructure supporting fees for land used by foreign-invested enterprises are levied at 50% of local standards.
- Invest in infrastructure projects such as energy, transportation, communications, etc. The land price is charged according to the minimum standard for similar land use in the lot.
- The land price, factory rent, electricity fee, water fee, wage price and inspection fee of the foreign investment enterprise are always excellent.
- The most favorable tax relief for foreign investment companies
- Allowing foreign invested companies to apply for mortgage loans to banks with their own assets
- Encourage foreign companies to carry out processing and assembly business, paying the work fee from low, and relaxing the proportion of product duty-paid domestic sales
- If a special economic zone enterprise holds a branch factory, a sub-plant or an affiliated factory, it can enjoy the preferential policies of the special zone and the preferential policies of the city.
- Investment industry policy encourages development, and projects with large investment amount can determine more favorable policies in project negotiation.
More details: Investing Process