Shenzhen to focus on chips, AI and biomedicine to grow GDP 40 per cent over five years in the face of US hostility and economic slowdown
- China’s southern tech hub of Shenzhen aims for 40 per cent growth over five years, with eyes on becoming an international hub of innovation
- Shenzhen tech giants Huawei, ZTE and DJI have already been hurt by US sanctions, with Tencent also receiving hostility from Washington
Shenzhen, the southern boomtown hand-picked by Chinese President Xi Jinping as a model “socialist” city, has set lofty development and technology goals in a blueprint for 2025 and beyond, painting itself a bright future despite challenges from US sanctions and slowing economic growth at home.
The mainland city, which spent the last couple of decades transforming from a sweatshop manufacturing base into China’s answer to Silicon Valley, has hopes to boost its economy to 4 trillion yuan (US$612.8 billion) by 2025, when it aims to be a “modern international innovative city”, according to a blueprint published by the Shenzhen government this week. If achieved, the city’s economy would be more than 40 per cent larger than its estimated 2020 GDP of 2.8 trillion yuan.
According to the plan, the city will double both total and per capita GDP over the next 15 years, becoming “a capital of innovation, business and ideas with global influence” by 2035. This would mean a significantly lower growth than what it saw over the last 15 years, when the economy grew nearly fivefold, from 580 billion yuan in 2006 to 2.8 trillion yuan in 2020.
As part of its plan, the city aims to strengthen its role in fundamental research by prioritising areas including integrated circuits, artificial intelligence and biomedicine to become a “technological and industrial innovation high ground with global influence”.
However, Shenzhen’s ambitions are overshadowed by increasing hostility from Washington. Restrictions from the US have already limited growth outside China for Huawei Technologies Co. and ZTE, two telecoms equipment giants based in the city.
“Shenzhen can really feel the pain from US sanctions as some big companies on the US blacklist are from Shenzhen, and the city is urgently seeking tech self-reliance,” said Guo Wanda, executive vice-president of the China Development Institute, a think tank in Shenzhen.
