It is difficult to use a label to describe Guangzhou. Here flowers are in full bloom all the year round, called "Flower City"; It is famous for "eating" and is known as "eating in Guangzhou"; Since ancient times, it has been the main harbor of the Maritime Silk Road and an important commercial gateway in China, known as the "millennium commercial capital".
This coastal city and open city, located in the southern tip of the mainland of China, has faced new challenges in its foundation for opening up and development in recent years: overlooking the Pearl River Estuary, there are more and more cross river channels on both sides of the river, the traffic pattern with Guangzhou as the hub is being broken, and people, goods and funds are being diverted; The Canton Fair, which has gone through more than 60 years, is competing on the same stage with "new stars" such as Shanghai International Trade Fair and Beijing Service Trade Fair
Be prepared for danger in times of safety and make plans for later action. At the beginning of 2022, Guangzhou will not only strengthen the infrastructure construction related to opening up and development, such as airport and rail transit, but also be more aggressive. It will promote the reform of business environment through iterative upgrading, deepen the soil for the survival and development of enterprises, seize the new opportunities brought by the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP), and make this open city closer to the world.
City gene: business is still a hot spot for investment for thousands of years
Since ancient times, Guangzhou has been close to the world. At one time, Southeast Asian and Arab businessmen traveled from south to north in the South China Sea, and Guangzhou was their first stop in China. During the Tang and Song Dynasties, 100000 overseas merchants gathered in Guangzhou, which was an oriental port with goods flowing to the world.
At the beginning of 2022, the gene says "open Guangzhou", which will play a major role in the world's largest free trade zone by seizing the opportunity of RCEP taking effect.
In the early morning of January 1, the accreditation hall of the Guangzhou Council for the Promotion of International Trade was brightly lit, and many enterprises took the lead in receiving the first batch of certificates of origin under RCEP, which is the key evidence for enjoying preferential policies such as tariff reduction and exemption, customs clearance convenience, etc.
Yang Yong, director of the Guangzhou Council for the Promotion of International Trade, said that in order to fully serve enterprises to take the RCEP Express and help foreign trade enterprises alleviate the high international shipping costs and other problems, Guangzhou has developed targeted benefit sharing programs for enterprises, helping enterprises make good use of policy dividends and enhance international competitiveness.
With its geographical advantages adjacent to Hong Kong and Macao and its vast industrial hinterland, Guangzhou has always been a popular place for foreign investors to invest in China. From January to November last year, there were 3788 newly established foreign direct investment enterprises in Guangzhou, and the actually used foreign capital was 50.451 billion yuan. The number of enterprises investing in the world's top 500 enterprises in Guangzhou reached 330, 21 more than last year.
Conghua District, located in the northernmost part of Guangzhou, is favored by Unilever because of its green mountains and rivers. As the largest project invested by Unilever in China in recent years, the company will spend 130 million euros to build the first phase factory of the South China production base, which is based on the development consideration of Guangzhou and radiating the Greater Bay Area market.
From west to east, and from north to south, goods in Guangzhou rotate, and capital, information and people flow here.
Under the impact of the epidemic, the passenger throughput of Guangzhou Baiyun Airport exceeded that of Atlanta Airport in the United States, becoming the busiest airport in the world. Guangzhou, with an actual management service population of far more than 22 million, is well deserved as a "city of traffic".
In Nansha Free Trade Zone, the southernmost part of Guangzhou, tall buildings and factories are under construction, and giant ships shuttle from Nansha Port wharf. Among the three major areas of the Guangdong Pilot Free Trade Zone, Hengqin and Qianhai were given new missions by the CPC Central Committee and the State Council last September, and the direction of Nansha attracted social attention for a while.
Lu Yixian, member of the Standing Committee of the Guangzhou Municipal Party Committee and secretary of the Nansha District Party Committee, said that the answer to Nansha is still to open up. The whole district will build a multi-level external channel and a high-level platform for opening up to the outside world, and form a new pattern of all-round opening up with a larger scope, broader fields and internal and external linkages.
Urban breakthrough: build up soil to strengthen the foundation and attract the phoenix to live
"Only after visiting the flower market can we celebrate the Spring Festival" - the centennial flower market has become the Spring Festival folk custom with the strongest festival atmosphere in Guangzhou. The spread of the COVID-19 epidemic has not only reduced the festival atmosphere, but also brought survival risks to flower farmers and flower enterprises. On January 12, Guangzhou once again opened the "Cloud Flower Market". The city's annual flower production base officially welcomed about 12 million pots (plants) of annual flowers, adding a sales guarantee to flower enterprises.
If the "flower market on the cloud" is a "small profit" for small and micro enterprises in Guangzhou to continue the traditional customs, then the promotion of business environment reform in Guangzhou in the New Year against unreasonable restrictions such as regional segmentation and local protection, as well as problems such as improving investment and construction convenience, is a "big profit" for all market entities.
Business environment is the soil for enterprise development. Guangzhou has been rated as the national benchmark for all 18 business environment assessment indicators for two consecutive years, and has been listed as the most popular investment city by the American Chamber of Commerce in South China for four consecutive years. Government affairs services went from offline to online. 1846 government affairs services in the city entered the municipal government affairs service hall, with a "one door" rate of 100%. 1818 items entered the comprehensive service window, with a "one window" rate of 98.48%.
The market-oriented environment enables enterprises to move "faster", and the legal environment enables enterprises to move "more stably". The Regulations of Guangzhou on Optimizing the Business Environment came into force last year. During a routine inspection in Yuexiu District, Guangzhou, the law enforcement personnel found that the labels of six bottles of "peach juice drinks" sold in a supermarket did not use the standard words as required, but they did not give administrative punishment because the product did not affect food safety or mislead consumers. The merchants corrected it in a timely manner after being ordered to do so. The "inclusive and prudent" supervision implemented in Guangzhou provides enterprises with a warmer and more inclusive market environment.
Guangzhou's urban "software" is being upgraded synchronously to meet the needs of internationalization. As the core city of the Guangdong Hong Kong Macao Greater Bay Area, Guangzhou is exploring the construction of a business environment system that is consistent with international prevailing rules. Guangzhou has successively launched the "Guangzhou Hong Kong Link" and "Guangzhou Macao Link" commercial services, extending the mainland commercial services to Hong Kong and Macao regions, and facilitating Hong Kong and Macao investors to settle in Guangzhou quickly.
With a complete urban industrial system, a large scale of market players and the early accumulated reform foundation, Guangzhou was identified by the State Council as one of the first pilot cities for business environment innovation last year. Compared with the leading cities in China, such as Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, Guangzhou has pacesetters in front of it and pursuers behind it. The overall reform of focusing on the business environment in the New Year is a breakthrough for Guangzhou to strengthen the opening up of the city and bring the world closer.
"Guangzhou has been iteratively upgrading its business environment reform, and some of the list items are entering the no man's land. We need to use more open thinking to promote the reform," said Li Haizhou, director of the Guangzhou Municipal Development and Reform Commission, "In the first quarter of this year, the situation of" six stabilities and six guarantees "is still grim, but as long as we plant more soil and cultivate more market players, we can provide a foundation for ensuring employment, basic people's livelihood and grassroots operations."
Urban ambition: blossom the world and share opportunities
A single flower does not make spring, while one hundred flowers in full blossom bring spring to the garden. More than two years after the global epidemic spread, Guangzhou is still an important window connecting the world and China, allowing "Made in China" to fly into the homes of global consumers, and also allowing the world's merchants to share the dividends of the Chinese market.
Opening up allows "Guangzhou goods" to go around the world and attract customers from all over the world. Tianhe Road Business District, a commercial complex adjacent to each other, is still the brightest area overlooking Guangzhou at night even when encountering the impact of e-commerce, with an average daily passenger flow of 1.5 million people. The dazzling signboards complement Guangzhou Flower City, reflect the fireworks of a city, and become a vivid footnote for Guangzhou to build itself into an international consumption center city.
The concept of openness has also made Guangzhou the largest "city of automobiles" in China. In 2021, Xiaopeng Auto, headquartered in Tianhe District, Guangzhou, will sell 98000 cars, a year-on-year increase of 263%. Guangzhou has an annual output of nearly 3 million vehicles, ranking first in China for two consecutive years.
Because large output value is conducive to improving GDP, automobile is an industry with outstanding local protection. In some cities, the number of cars produced by local automobile enterprises is relatively large. In Guangzhou, the vehicles produced by GAC Group accounted for only 10% of the city's car ownership. The principle of openness and competition that Guangzhou adheres to is behind the principle of not "protecting the calf".
At present, the T3 terminal of the third phase expansion project of Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport is under construction as an important part of the open city. In the construction of the "Great Bay Area on the Track", the Guangzhou subway network has been extended to Qingyuan and Foshan, and will shake hands with Dongguan, Zhongshan and Zhuhai. The construction of the Guangzhou metropolitan area has been an arrow in the wind. The urban agglomeration composed of Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hong Kong and Macao is presenting a picture of Guangdong Hong Kong Macao Greater Bay Area, and world-class bay areas are growing rapidly.
Last October, the 130th Canton Fair was held after 65 years. In his congratulatory letter, General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that "efforts should be made to build an important platform for China to open up in an all-round way, promote high-quality development of international trade, and connect domestic and international double circulation".
This is the new mission of the Canton Fair, but also a new opportunity for Guangzhou. In the spring of 2022, the 131st Canton Fair will arrive as scheduled. The door of China's opening up is getting bigger and bigger. In working with other countries around the world to promote the construction of a high-level open world economy, Guangzhou will certainly blossom new vitality.
(The original title was "First line observation of the city in 2022 | 1000 year old commercial capital connecting inside and outside - observation of the" open city "Guangzhou in 2022)
