ONE of China’s cities, Shenzhen, has expressed a keen interest in partnering with South African companies to promote innovation and entrepreneurship to create a better future.
This is according to the director of the development and reform commission of Shenzhen municipality, Guo Ziping.
Guo told the Shenzhen-South Africa Investment Promotion Conference yesterday that there was so much that Shenzhen could offer to South Africa, especially when it came to technology and innovation.
“Shenzhen has changed from a small sleepy fishing village in 1978, when it became China’s first Special Economic Zone (SEZ), to a wealthy modern metro by embracing innovation and entrepreneurship, which is why it is home to more than 300 of the Fortune500 companies,” she said.
Shenzhen has a population of 18 million, far less than South Africa’s 62 million, but its gross domestic product (GDP) of $482 billion exceeds that of South Africa, which is $401bn.
In 2023, Shenzhen’s economy grew by 6.0%, at least 10 times faster than South Africa’s 0.6%.
Shenzhen is the first National Demonstration City of Innovation in China and has incubated several high-tech companies such as BYD, DJI, Huawei, Tencent and ZTE.
The Economist magazine recently dubbed Shenzhen China’s “Silicon Delta” as it has been rated as the best city for innovation and start-ups.
This enabling environment meant that Shenzhen added 1 615 new national high-tech enterprises in 2023 to bring the total to 24 700.
“There are plenty of new opportunities to foster innovation and entrepreneurship which is being helped by the direct flights between Shenzhen and Johannesburg,” Guo said.
“We want to expand on our golden era of bilateral relations and expand trade and investment to the mutual benefit of our two countries.”
Last month, Chinese President Xi Jinping stressed developing new quality productive forces according to local conditions.
The focus this year is therefore on new growth engines such as artificial intelligence, new materials, and innovative drugs, in addition to other Fourth Industrial Revolution sectors.
More than 120 countries, or almost two-thirds of the world, count China as their major trading partner, so a strong Chinese economy lifts other countries such as South Africa.
China is South Africa’s largest trading partner, accounting for 9.4% of South Africa’s exports and 20.2% of South Africa’s imports in 2022.
In rand terms, exports to China totalled R188.4bn, while South Africa imported R367.4bn, and this rose to exports of R228.6bn and imports of R404.4bn in 2023.
Shenzhen is geared toward the export market and has been ranked first among large and medium cities in China for 31 consecutive years.
This export trade could not have been developed without people-to-people contact and Shenzhen’s airport handled 52.73 million people in 2023.
By contrast, the Airports Company South Africa (Acsa) handled just over 18 million people at its nine airports.
Shenzhen’s port handled 29.88 million containers in 2023, ranking it the fourth busiest in the world, and the city was ranked first for the fourth consecutive year in the assessment of key cities to integrate government services in 2022.
BUSINESS REPORT