"Shenzhen’s Strength" Among the Fortune Global 500 to Continue Growing

The 2018 Fortune Global 500 list has just been released and includes seven companies from Shenzhen: Ping An, Hua Wei, Amer International, China Merchants Bank,Evergrande, Tencent and Vanke. Their rankings have risen significantly compared with previous years together with how highly they're valued.



　　The Fortune Global 500, which is released annually, mirrors the global economic landscape. Looking at the total number of companies on the list, 120 are Chinese enterprises, ranking them second only to the companies from the United States with 126, a fact that fits with the China’s position as the world's second largest economy. For the last 15 years the number of Chinese enterprises on this list has continued to increase, indicating that momentum is gathering as they grow bigger and bigger. However, “being stronger” doesn’t necessarily come with “being bigger." There are still big gaps in large Chinese enterprises in terms of institutional mechanisms, innovation, personnel training, brand influence and internationalization, when compared with top international enterprises. Looking at two indicators (return on sales and return on net assets) that can better judge a company’s performance, the overall condition of Chinese enterprises on the list is not optimistic: their performance indicators are slightly lower than average and are going down -- a situation that must be seriously addressed.


　　The economist Paul Anthony Samuelson said in his famous book Economics that "In the United States, business is about enterprise", which shows the importance of enterprises to a country. The report to the 19th CPC National Congress clearly stated that "Fostering world-leading enterprises with international competitiveness” means we must train our companies to be bigger and stronger, thereby accelerating the construction of a modern economic system and promoting high-quality economy development.


　　We may observe China from many perspectives, and the development of enterprises is one of the indispensable factors. Some have summed up the Chinese economy over the past 40 years of reform and opening up in three main phrases: first, a big and strong state-owned economy, for example in Beijing; second, introduction of foreign capital, for example in Shanghai; third, prosperity of private economy, for example in Shenzhen. It’s just as the saying goes: “State-owned enterprises prosper in Beijing, foreign enterprises in Shanghai, private enterprises in Shenzhen.”



　　With its big market and fast-paced growth, it's not difficult for China to attract world-class multinational companies or cultivate world-class state-owned enterprises. However, the task of cultivating world-class local private enterprises in a short time is extremely difficult. One of the most successful and unique things achieved by the Shenzhen SEZ since its establishment 38 years ago is the independent nurturing of a number of world-class local private enterprises, and the entrepreneurial spirit has become a distinctive part of the city’s DNA. Of the seven companies on the list, except Evergrande, six are native to Shenzhen and have tremendous influence in China and a strong presence on the international stage.


　　The number of Fortune Global 500 companies that are based in a city can be very important, making its structure and benefits even more appealing. Among the seven Shenzhen-headquartered Fortune Global 500 companies, there are two financial companies, two real estate developers, one communications equipment manufacturer, one non-ferrous metals manufacturer and one Internet company. These all fall within the scope of modern services, high technology and strategic emerging industries, which reflects the rationality of Shenzhen's economic and industrial structure. Of those Chinese companies listed, Ping An ranks 7th, and also boasts the highest revenue among non-state-owned enterprises; Tencent, with a profit margin of more than 30%, is the most profitable enterprise. They form a microcosm of the development quality and efficiency of Shenzhen enterprises.


　　Instead of trees standing alone one by one, world-class companies should result from the same ecosystem. Shenzhen's urban atmosphere, business vitality, public services and innovative entrepreneurship provide a fertile space in which companies can thrive. Shenzhen takes pride in its success in striving forward amid intense market competition while turning out large world-class enterprises and numerous small enterprises that make up an innovative and competitive “echelon”. This also serves as the strongest momentum that drives it forward.


　　Big enterprises are the cornerstone of industrial development and can lead and drive a number of supporting industries and enterprises to form a powerful driving force for industrial progress. As early as three years ago, Shenzhen promised that it would have 8 to 10 local enterprises listed on the Fortune Global 500 by 2020, with its urban competitiveness ranking among the best in the world. To this end, in the Several Measures to Help Enterprises Enhance Competitiveness, it is clearly stated that we need to implement a plan to nurture and attract large leading enterprises and multinational companies and add a number of corporate groups with international influence and competitiveness by providing 30 million yuan as a reward when they are first included in the Fortune Global 500. A 10 million yuan reward is offered to enterprises when they are first included in the China 500. Meanwhile, we will set up access limitations on land development and utilization, focus on supporting new energy, new materials and bio-pharmaceutical sectors to provide space for strategic emerging industries, modern services and headquarters economic bases. Strong policy orientation and support means big opportunities for enterprises. At present, Shenzhen has taken the lead in enhancing the reform of the business environment, which will make it easier for enterprises to grow bigger. In this context, “Shenzhen’s strength” in the Fortune Global 500 is expected to continue to grow an indeed it is only one step away from its 2020 goal.


　　It should be mentioned that only a great country can foster clusters of great enterprises. All those "giant trees" among Shenzhen enterprises have grown up throughout the process of reform and opening up. In the future, the new Shenzhen enterprises joining the Fortune Global 500 will inevitably stem from the national empowerment of the all-encompassing rise of the Chinese economy and sail forth into the era of comprehensively deepening reform and opening up.

Shenzhen’s strategic emerging industries take center stage

The functional cellphone Tecno has become a common sight on the main streets of Africa. Currently, this cellphone brand, which is not widely known at home, has been widely accepted in Africa. Tecno cellphones now account for about 50% of the market in Africa due to their superior quality, low power usage and unique functions.

　　The wide acceptance of Tecno cellphones in the international market reflects the rapid development of strategic emerging industries in Shenzhen. Currently, strategic emerging industries are now the main engine of Shenzhen’s economic development and are playing a critical role in this city. In the first half of 2018, the seven strategic emerging industries in Shenzhen achieved an added value of 414.604 billion yuan, an increase of 8.3%, and 0.3 percentage points higher than the GDP growth rate.

　　Emerging industries develop fast with strong momentum

　　The rapid development of emerging industries helped Shenzhen step onto the pathway of quality growth and connotative development, and created a favorable mechanism in which development is driven by innovation.

　　For example, Shenzhen makes comprehensive plans with foresight in the bio-tech industry. It has strengthened research in core and cutting-edge technologies and created an ecological system of industrial innovation. In recent years, Shenzhen’s bio-tech industry has grown rapidly at an average rate of 20% each year. In H1 2018, the city’s biomedical industry saw added value of 14.192 billion yuan, an increase of 23.8%.

　　As a national base of the bio-tech industry, Shenzhen made great achievements in the fields of biomedical engineering and biomedicine. The city is ranked among the world’s leaders in high-end biomedical engineering, gene sequencing, bioinformatic analysis and cell therapy. Data shows that Shenzhen has 300 innovation platforms of different levels and categories in the bio-tech field, among which 21 are on the national level. The city’s major industrial parks include the International Bio-Tech Valley, Shenzhen High-Tech Industrial Park and Pingshan National Bio-Tech Base.

　　In the field of next generation IT, Shenzhen has become an important base for IT manufacturing, R&D, exports and logistics center in China, and the headquarters or regional headquarters of the top 10 IT companies are located in Shenzhen. In H1 2018, Shenzhen’s next generation IT industry had an added value of 211.199 billion yuan, an increase of 9.6% and 1.6 percentage points higher than GDP growth rate.

　　Indeed, Shenzhen has issued plans and supporting policies for seven strategic emerging industries -- biotechnology, internet, new energy, new materials, culture creativity, next generation IT, energy saving and environmental protection -- and keeps cultivating and generating new business patterns. To push forward the concentrated development of strategic emerging industries, Shenzhen has constructed multiple key zones in recent years, such as Liuxiandong Strategic Emerging Industry Headquarter Base and Baguang International Bio-Tech Valley, which bolstered momentum for strategic emerging industries.

　　Leading companies are making great contributions.

　　Due to the rapid development of industries, the results of innovation have been numerous. Leading companies such as Huawei, Tencent, BYD Auto, Mindray and SuperD have risen to the top in their respective industries and indeed the world. They are playing an irreplaceable role in pushing forward industrial development.

　　Some companies with high growth have developed into industrial champions and become the core driving force for emerging industries. Hepalink has obtained the right to set the international market prices of heparin-related products. Beike Biotechnology has expanded with the largest-scale and most robust data in the world in terms of security and effectiveness of clinical research on stem cells. BTR has become the largest supplier of negative electrode materials of lithium-ion batteries in the world. DJI-Innovations accounts for more than 70% of the market share of consumer drones in the world. UBTech is the first high-growth humanoid robot company in the world and attracted widespread attention in the industry.

　　Shenzhen is strengthening top-level design of the innovation system and pushing forward technological innovation and industrial development through innovation in policies and systems. By issuing the Plan for Reforming Diversified Methods of Supporting Emerging Industries with Special Funds and implementing the special plan for supporting strategic emerging industries, Shenzhen provided support for more than 12,000 industrial projects. The city is carrying out a special project for integrated development of “industrial chain + innovation chain”, and it conducts more than 100 key scientific and technological projects every year in order to strengthen breakthrough efforts in core technologies.

　　“As it turns out, Shenzhen has seized the important opportunity of global technological reform at the earliest moment and in the best way possible,” says Song Bing, the secretary general of China Innovation South IP Institute. The rapid growth of strategic emerging industries enables Shenzhen to cultivate an industrial layout with stronger innovation capacity, better structure and higher quality, and helps with the industrial transformation and upgrade.

visa-related services counter opened for expats in ShenZhen

STARTING yesterday, expatriates who work at Fortune 500 companies, the country's top 500 companies, listed companies, large-scale leading companies recognized by Guangdong Province, top 100 taxpaying companies, industrial companies or foreign trade companies in Shenzhen can access exclusive visa-related services, the Shenzhen Special Zone Daily reported yesterday.

According to the public security bureau, an exclusive counter will be opened for foreign executives of such companies. Additionally, an enterprise can make an appointment two weeks in advance if there are more than 40 applicants at the company, and staffers will be sent to the company to provide on-site services.

Meanwhile, the time for handling visa-related documents has been shortened from seven days to five.

On Aug. 20, Shenzhen's entry and exit authorities launched new online services for the convenience of foreigners. Expatriates who need to apply for certifications for a lost passport or a birth certificate for their baby born in China can log onto www.szga.gov.cn to complete the application.

Applicants need to fill out an online application form and upload the images of the materials as required.

In the past, the application formalities for expats were less convenient. Foreigners who had lost their passports had to go to the processing hall of the immigration office to fill out a form before submitting a lost article report at the police station before the applications could be processed.

Foreigners who wanted to apply for a birth certificate for their children born in China had to make an appointment online before submitting all of the required documents, including original passports and printed copies, to the administration hall of the entry and exit department.

Source:Shenzhen Daily

ShenZhen Biomedical industry exceeds 240b yuan

THE Shenzhen International Biotech Summit 2018 and the Biology and Health Industry Expo were held at the Shenzhen Convention and Exhibition Center on Thursday.

Nearly 100 guests, including biotech entrepreneurs, academicians and investors from home and abroad, attended the summit.

Hu Shengshou, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, and Wayne Hendrickson, a member of the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S., both delivered keynote speeches.

Hu opened his speech by introducing the development of smart medical treatment in China, before pointing out the existing problems in information security, algorithm transparency and data authenticity.

With the boom of artificial intelligence (AI), AI technologies have also made great progress in the medical field, according to Hu. "In this context and in terms of social environment, policy, technology and capital, smart medical treatment seems to be very close to our daily life," Hu said.

However, in Hu's view, despite the emergence of medical AI companies and soaring medical financing, we still have a long way to go to realize the application of AI technologies in the medical field.

"Statistics showed that the smart medical market in China is expected to exceed 20 billion yuan (US$2.91 billion) in 2018. However, up until now there haven't been any real smart medical products in China approved by State-level certification and adopted for clinical application," Hu said in his speech.

According to him, computing power, algorithms and data are the core of smart medical treatment. In particular, health big data will greatly enhance the capabilities of community medical services.

Hu said the National Center for Cardiovascular Diseases, Fuwai Hospital and the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences will cooperate with the Shenzhen Municipal Government to develop a system to improve medical service capabilities at the grass-roots level based on three databases, including those of the city's population, medical insurance and hospitals.

According to Ai Xuefeng, vice mayor of Shenzhen, the output value of the city's biomedical industry exceeded 240 billion yuan in 2017. In the first half of 2018, the growth of the industry's added value increased by 23.8 percent, ranking first among the seven strategic emerging industries.


Source:Shenzhen Daily

Shenzhen is ideal place for foreign company or foreigner to set up business

Shenzhen is located on a southern tip of the Chinese mainland and on the eastern bank of the Pearl River. It neighbors Hong Kong. Occupying 1,991.64 square kilometers, the city has a subtropical marine climate with plenty of rain and sunshine and is rich in tropical fruit. By the end of 2015, there were 11.38 million permanent residents.

The country's first special economic zone - the brainchild of late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping - was established here in 1980. Shenzhen has been a touchstone for China's reform and opening-up policy since then.

 

In merely 36 years, Shenzhen, once a tiny border town of just over 30,000 people, has grown into a modern metropolis. It established many firsts in the history of world industrialization, urbanization and modernization.

The city is the high-tech and manufacturing hub of southern China, home to the world's third-busiest container port and the fourth-busiest airport on the Chinese mainland. It is one of the country's most popular tourist destinations. It was also elected one of the top 10 Chinese cities popular with expats in 2015. The high-tech, financial services, modern logistics and cultural industries are mainstays of the city. Emerging industries of strategic importance and modern service industries are quickly becoming new engines for the city's economic growth. Shenzhen has set up new standards of "Shenzhen Quality" and "China Quality" on sustainable development and globalization.

6 reasons why YOU should set up a Shenzhen company!

1) Its prime location

When it comes to prime real estate, both for living and company/factory set up, Shenzhen takes the cake! Located in the southern province of Guangdong, on the eastern side of the PRD (Pearl River Delta) region,  Shenzhen is a sprawling metropolis thats position is strengthened even further by the cities that surround it.
 
 
This coastal city is situated just North of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, an international hub long recognized as one the best places to do business in the region. Shenzhen's close proximity to HK makes it easier for international travelers to head back home (if they can't do so directly from SZ) and serves as a shopper's paradise for everyone looking for foreign/Hong Kong brands that may not be found on the mainland in Shenzhen, but this won't necessarily be the case for much longer (see reason number 3 below).

A manufacturing powerhouse in its own right, Shenzhen is also in close proximity to the manufacturing mega cities of Guangzhou and Dongguan. These are the cities that epitomize the "Made In China" trademark, and just about everything you could possibly think of can be sourced from either of these cities. Shenzhen is also home to some of China's most successful high-tech companies, including Tencent, TP-LINK, ZTE and Huawei.

With its position in the middle of other surrounding key cities, Shenzhen is really a hotbed for anyone looking to move over, look for a job or set up a company in just about any industry, or a factory manufacturing just about any product!

2) It's an international city

Compared to all of the other big cities in China (bar perhaps Shanghai), Shenzhen is widely regarded as one of the most foreign friendly cities, and a city that oozes international appeal.

 


This city has hosted the largest-ever World University Games,  is home to what will be the world's fourth tallest building in 2016, and has seen many international artists and dignitaries grace its land in recent years. Shenzhen is a city that has literally got it all:

• modern architechtural design with a bunch of parks and surrounding mountains, making it a 'Green city'
• a highly developed transport network that covers the land, sea and skies
• loads of tourist attractions, beach resorts and one of the busiest container ports in the world
• a captivating nightlife with tons of local/foreign restaurants and bars
• cheap shopping complexes and malls with many foreign brands
• a thriving expat community with English becoming more and more prevalent with locals
• a jobs market that spans over many industries and professions

Being international creates an environment that not only makes it easier for foreigners to integrate into, but also helps to foster healthy business development and cooperation between local and foreign business people and their Shenzhen companies.

3) Its economic and tax incentives

As a Special Economic Zone (SEZ), Shenzhen has enjoyed special economic policies and flexible government measures that has helped make it the financial juggernaut that it is today. Foreign companies that have invested in the SEZ enjoy tax incentives that make setting up shop in the region a favorable choice.



The establishment of the QianHai Zone (above) within Shenzhen is just another case of preferential policies being implemented to strengthen ties with HK, and provide foreign investors looking to set up a Shenzhen company in the zone with:

• Lower labour costs
• Lower rental costs
• Closer proximity to mainland China manufacturing
• Lower corporate taxes for businesses
• Many financial incentives for businesses and individuals

A huge shopping complex is also being built in this zone, with more than 20 Hong Kong brands making the way over the border and commencing business on December the 7th 2015.

4) A company for every type of business person's needs

Whilst the setting up of a WFOE in China is perhaps one of the most popular business vehicles to choose from, there are different types of companies foreign business people can set up, each with their own unique benefits and drawbacks.

The varied selection on offer makes things incredibly easy to set up a company in any shape or size on this side. It gives business people free reign to choose a type of company that looks after their personal and business interests.

Check out our services page to find out more on the different types of companies one can register in Shenzhen when planning on doing business in China.

5) Its industrial and design parks

 

Shenzhen has specially cordoned off specific areas within its borders to accommodate for industrial and design parks:

• Shenzhen Hi-Tech Industrial Park: Industries encouraged in the zone include Biotechnology/Pharmaceuticals, Building/Construction Materials, Chemicals Production and Processing, Computer Software, Electronics Assembly & Manufacturing, Instruments & Industrial Equipment Production, Medical Equipment and Supplies, Research and Development, Telecommunications Equipment.
• Shenzhen Software Park: integrated with Shenzhen Hi-Tech Industry Park, an important vehicle established by Shenzhen Municipal Government to support the development of software industry.
• Sino-Finnish Design Park: It is an industrial design program implemented in Shenzhen on the basis of cooperation between municipal governments of Shenzhen and Helsinki.

These parks are excellent incubators for startups as they cater to so many different industries. This provides the perfect base of cooperation between local and foreign businesspeople, promotes healthy competition and room for even greater innovation!

6) A doorway to the rest of Asia

I have already mentioned Shenzhen's prime location amongst some of the biggest manufacturring cities in China as one of the top reasons why you should set up a company here, but it is worth noting just how accessible the rest of Asia is from China's most competitive city.

Setting up a Shenzhen company brings the rest of South East Asia so much closer to your doorstep. Trade between some of the world's most populous and prosperous countries such as India, Indonesia and Australia is made possible by Shenzhen's location and facilitated by its numerous ports, listed as the third busiest container port in the world.

Apart from the obvious business opportunities that Shenzhen, its ports and location presents, where does everyone go once it is time to take a break from the grind? South East Asia is home to some of the most beautiful destinations in the world, and many of these destinations are only a few hours away by air from Shenzhen. Mixing business and pleasure is just what the great city of Shenzhen is about!