Guangdong airport leads world in passenger flow

 Update:2021-01-26    Source: chinadaily.com.cn

A Qatar Airways flight lands at Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport in Guangdong province.

Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport in the Guangdong provincial capital surpassed Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in the United States to become the world's busiest airport of 2020.

Despite the pandemic last year, the Guangzhou airport, one of the three busiest on the Chinese mainland, handled 43.77 million passenger trips last year, around 800,000 more than the figure recorded at the Atlanta airport, according to a statement released by Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport on Monday.

Last year, with the pandemic in full swing, the Atlanta airport logged 42.92 million passenger trips, a year-on-year decline of 61.17 percent.

This is the first time a Chinese airport has led the world in passenger flow, the statement said.

As the pandemic began to be controlled on the Chinese mainland starting in April, Guangzhou Baiyun began handling more passenger trips than its Atlanta counterpart. Large industrial companies in the province, home many foreign-funded companies, joint ventures, State-owned and private firms, resumed production, the statement said.

For the month of November, Guangzhou Baiyun handled more than 5 million passenger trips, becoming the first airport to process more than 5 million passenger trips on the mainland in a single month.

The rapid growth in the passenger flow at Guangzhou Baiyun indicates a strong economic rebound in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, as the coronavirus has basically been controlled on the mainland.

Guangdong's GDP reached more than 11 trillion yuan ($1.69 trillion) in 2020.

Plan for Guangzhou airport hub moves forward

 Update:2021-02-03    Source: chinadaily.com.cn

Construction of the central business district in Guangzhou Aerotropolis Development District officially kicked off in Guangdong province on Monday. [Photo/Guangzhou Aerotropolis Development District Administration]

Construction of the central business district in Guangzhou Aerotropolis Development District officially kicked off in Guangdong province on Monday, aiming to make the southern metropolis into a world-class aviation hub in the years to come.

A strategic cooperation framework agreement to promote the hub was signed on Monday by Guangzhou Aerotropolis Development District Administration, Guangzhou Customs, China Southern Airlines Group and the Guangdong Airport authority.

In addition, the Guangdong branch of China Development Bank signed a cooperative agreement to financially support construction.

The project will cost more than 18 billion yuan ($2.77 billion), including the construction of a landmark airport complex in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, according to a statement released by the Guangzhou Aerotropolis Development District Administration.

The complex will have floor space of 1.5 million square meters which include hotels, business centers, convention and exhibition halls, cultural and tourism facilities, shopping malls and offices for international company headquarters, it said.

Hu Hong, vice-mayor of Guangzhou, said the development zone will play an important role in promoting high-quality economic development in Guangzhou in the years ahead.

Ding Jibao, director of Guangzhou Customs, said Guangzhou Customs has vigorously supported the high-quality development of the Guangzhou airport economy and has helped accelerate the city toward becoming a world-class aviation hub in recent years.

Despite the coronavirus pandemic last year, Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport handled 43.77 million passenger trips to become the busiest airport by passenger flow in the world.

Meanwhile the airport's cargo import and export value reached 280.93 billion yuan in 2020, up year-on-year by 21 percent and hitting a record high

GBA: first International Special Talent Zone to be built in Nansha

 Update:2021-02-19    Source: China Daily Global

The 1st International Special Talent Zone will be set up in Nansha District, Guangzhou, according to the 1st document issued by the provincial Leading Group for the Development of the Guangdong-Hongkong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) recently.

[Photo: Nanfang Daily]

For top and urgently-needed talents,preferential policies and special incentives will be implemented as a pilot plan to deepen the reform of global talent management. World-class institutions, international science and technology organizations, and laboratories are welcomed to open their branch offices or co-labs in Nansha.

The development objectives of the International Special Talent Zone under the newly released document are:

1. by 2025, the establishment of the 1st International Special Talent Zone (ISTZ) as a development underpinning within the Greater Bay Area will show noticeable results. A talent development mechanism with openness and innovation will be essentially formed.

2. by 2035, the building of a globally influential ISTZ will be complete. It will support high-level opening-up of Nansha as a major gateway and attract talented personnel around the world to GBA.

To facilitate cross-border travels for inbound talent,Nansha will establish port visa agencies and optimize the living, working and travelling policies for foreign experts and professionals.

Over the past two years, Nansha has achieved high-quality economic development with its GDP growth rates consecutively tops other districts in Guangzhou.

February 18th marked the two-year anniversary of issuing the Outline Development Plan for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, in which the goal of establishing GBA as an international first-class bay area for living, working and travelling was made.

Foreign businesses bullish on China's future

 Update:2021-03-01    Source: chinadaily.com.cn

Harley Seyedin, president of AmCham South China (third from right), said China is still the top destination for foreign investment around the world, as foreign companies are optimistic on the 2021 business outlook in the country. [Zheng Caixiong/China Daily]

Despite tensions in the China-US relationship and the coronvirus pandemic last year, 94 percent of American companies surveyed see bright prospects in the Chinese market for 2021, according to the American Chamber of Commerce in South China on Friday.

None of the companies surveyed showed a willingness to leave the country. The research was reported in the 2021 White Paper on the Business Environment in China and the 2021 Special Report on the State of Business in South China.

Harley Seyedin, president of AmCham South China, said China remains the top destination for foreign investment worldwide. Many companies believe they will see an improvement in Sino-US relations this year, he said.

"There is a general consensus within the business community that the Biden administration will view the Sino-US relationship through a different looking glass," he said. "And I predict a rather long honeymoon period within which the two sides will have an opportunity to examine their differences, evaluate what is important to each side and begin friendly and mutually respectful dialogue."

Seyedin said he expects the US and China to hit a reset button and very likely open a new era of cooperation that will benefit not just themselves but the entire globe.

"While a combination of factors, including the coronavirus pandemic, severely impacted the global economy last year, only a slight decrease in actual investment in China was realized," said Seyedin at a news conference in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, on Friday.

"Factors including huge market potential, preferential policies and uncertainties of the pandemic in other countries and regions have whetted companies' interest to increase their investment in China, or shift investment to China," he said.

Seventy-three percent of the American companies surveyed and 70 percent of the Chinese ones plan to reinvest in China this year, while 57 percent of participants from the European Union and others have reinvestment plans, Seyedin said.

The vast majority of companies surveyed have expansion plans in China over the next three years, he said.

Guangzhou has been voted the most preferred destination for foreign investment in China in four consecutive years, Seyedin said.

The southern metropolis is followed by Shanghai, Shenzhen and Beijing, while other cities, including Dongguan, Chengdu and Zhuhai, are also attracting investors' interest, he added.

Guangzhou welcomes $47b in new foreign investment

 Update:2021-03-04    Source: eguangzhou.gov.cn

Matthew Price, president of Greater China at P&G. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

A series of events including a symposium on cooperation between Guangdong province and transnational companies during the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) period and a signing ceremony for strategic cooperation framework agreements were held in Guangzhou on March 2.

A total of 37 cooperation intention agreements with an overall investment of more than 300 billion yuan ($46.37 billion) were signed between Guangdong province and transnational companies during the ceremony.

Ten of these agreements, with a total investment of around 44.1 billion yuan, were related to Guangzhou, covering areas spanning modern agriculture, high technologies and retail business.

Foreign investment has been an important driver of Guangzhou's economic development for years and the city saw an annual growth rate of 5.6 percent during the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20).

Foreign-invested companies have contributed to more than 50 percent of Guangzhou's output value of industrial companies with an annual revenue of more than 20 million yuan ($3.09 million) in 2020, as well as 37 percent of the city's total import and export volume over the year.

The city's actual use of foreign capital in 2020 expanded by 7.5 percent year-on-year to 49.37 billion yuan.

The city has set its sights on building a distribution center for global resources, striving to become the first choice for global companies and talents seeking development opportunities.

"The mutually beneficial relationship between the Guangzhou government and companies has been attractive for global investors," said Matthew Price, president of Greater China at Procter & Gamble Co.

"From my point of view, Guangzhou's business environment can be ranked among the world's first class," added Price.

P&G was one of the first Fortune Global 500 companies to invest in Guangzhou. It set up its first Chinese joint venture company in Guangzhou in 1988 and put its first Chinese production base in Huangpu district in 1990.

Luminaries see GBA as global financial hub

 Update:2021-03-05    Source: Chinadaily.com.cn

Yuan-denominated asset investment services, fintech offerings to get priority

Workers undertake construction of a railway bridge in South China's Guangdong province. The bridge interlinks the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. [Photo/XINHUA]

Lawmakers and political advisers have suggested to develop the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area into an international financial hub, with a flurry of fintech, green finance and renminbi-denominated asset investment services in the region.

In the GBA financial hub, fintech innovations, digital currency trials for cross-border use, and programs for stock, insurance and carbon trading across different regions should be encouraged, with an eye on making the GBA an attractive destination for global investors, Bai Hexiang, head of the Guangdong branch of the People's Bank of China, the central bank, said on Thursday.

The hub could link the onshore market, which has Shanghai as the financial center, and the offshore market catered by Hong Kong, said Bai, who is also a deputy to the 13th National People's Congress. He said the GBA hub should be as important as the Shanghai international financial center, but it should develop in a different manner.

Building the GBA financial hub is expected to be one of the tasks of China's 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25). It will be led by the central government under a mechanism that involves the central bank and financial regulators, said Bai.

Regulators have already achieved a consensus on jointly supervising wealth management products in the area with a pilot program, the so-called cross-boundary Wealth Management Connect, which allows residents to conduct cross-boundary investments in such financial instruments, the central bank announced earlier.

China can learn from the system created in the European Union that enables a financial institution, which receives a business license in one area, to offer financial services via branches across the entire EU.

Zhou Xiaochuan, former central bank governor, had earlier suggested that the GBA take the EU system as a reference for developing financial connect programs, with unified regulatory standards.

Peter Wong, HSBC's Asia-Pacific chief executive and a member of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, suggested that China should create a financial regulatory system that is geared to international standards, to accelerate the integration of financial markets and services in the GBA area.

In a proposal to the CPPCC National Committee, Wong said that though the GBA has made great strides in financial infrastructure construction, interconnectivity between financial markets, and the further opening up of China's financial sector, some institutional obstacles still restricted the development of integrated financial markets and services within the region. Problems such as differences in financial regulations and the not-so-smooth running of financial products and services across borders are still waiting to be solved.

"China could grant permission for wider and deeper reforms of the existing free trade zone in the GBA, to further eliminate institutional barriers and build a financial regulatory system that is in line with international practices," he said.

"This will not only promote the integration of financial markets and services in the GBA but also be conducive to achieving replicable institutional innovation results that can be propagated. In addition, it is helpful to improve China's new institutions of a higher-level open economy."

The government could take specific measures, such as implementing a "single pass system" so that financial institutions in Guangdong province, Hong Kong and Macao need not apply for a license separately in each place to offer cross-border financial services, Wong said.

He also advised the local governments of the three areas to recognize each others' credit reports, allowing entrepreneurs from Hong Kong and Macao who start their own business in the mainland to use their credit reports in their hometowns to apply for financial services at mainland financial institutions.

Guangzhou Port’s cargo throughput ranks 4th in the world

 Update:2021-03-08    Source: Newsgd.com

According to Nansha district’s report, the cargo throughput of Guangzhou Port reached 636 million tons in 2020, ranking it fourth in the world. And 490 million tons of the volume went to domestic trade, which makes it top in China.

Guangzhou Port has handled 3.01 billion tons of cargo from 2015 to 2020 and its container throughput reached 108 million twenty-foot equivalent (TEUs) during this period. Compared to 2011 to 2015 which is known as China’s twelfth five-year plan period, the growth rates are 25.8 percent and 36.7 percent respectively.

Guangzhou Port has opened 226 container routes. It is the biggest container port for domestic trade in China and an important port connecting with Africa, the Mediterranean and other Asian countries.

Guangzhou Port also adopted a new model to facilitate the freight transport among the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. Now the model covers 10 ports of the Greater Bay Area including Zhongshan’s Xiaolan Port and Foshan Port.

Nansha district is also improving its service for cross border e-commerce. Its overall customs clearance time for import and export has been compressed to 14.85 hours and 1.7 hours respectively.

It’s expected that Guangzhou Port’s cargo throughput will reach 680 million tons and its container throughput will reach 28 million TEUs during the fourteenth five-year plan period (2021-2025). The Port also plans to increase its container routes to 260 during this period.