CHINA RESEARCH AND INTELLIGENCE

Research Report of
Chinese Development
Zone Industry, 2009
www.shcri.com

TEL: 86-21-5842-6733
EMAIL: report@shcri.com

Research Report of Chinese Development Zone Industry, 2009

 Research Report of Chinese Development Zone Industry, 2009

Description
According to the different levels, the development zones in China can be divided into the state,
provincial and county level development zones. According to the different positioning and
functions, the development zones can be divided into the economic-technological development
area, hi-tech industrial development area, and export processing zones, tariff-free zones and the
border economic cooperative zones. In China, there are 1,568 various development zones above
the provincial level, including 223 state-level development zones and 1,345 provincial-level
development zones.

The economic-technological development zones, the constitution of the open areas in China, refer
to a small part area in the open cities, where are engaged in constructing perfect infrastructure and
setting up the investment environment conforming to the international level through attracting
foreign funds, forming the modern industrial structure majored in the hi-tech industries and
becoming the major areas for developing the foreign trade of the cities and its nearby regions. In
the early times, the economic-technological development zones highlighted the three mains,
namely, majoring in introducing the foreign capitals, setting up the industrial projects and
processing export products. After several-year development, the present positioning, targets and
investment subjects have been diversity and no longer restrained from attracting the foreign funds.

The regional different quantities of the development zones directly correspond to the space
distributions of the development zones. China has not balanced in the general distributions of the
development zones, where has large gap between the coastal and inland areas as well as among the
different provinces. Over 70% various level development zones are concentrated in the national 30%
areas as well as over 60% state-level development zones in less than 20% of national areas and 65%
provincial-level development zones in about 15% of national areas.

It can be seen from the distribution characteristics of the development zones that China has six
large urban-intensive areas, including Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze River Delta, Zhujiang Delta,
Shandong peninsula, west coast of the Taiwan Strait, the middle and south Liaoning, where are
also the most intensive areas of the development zones.

From 1984 to 1988, 14 state-level economic-technological development zones passed through the
approval by the State Council of PRC and were set up in succession. From 1984 to 2002, the State
Council totally approved and set up 49 stale-level economic-technological development zones and
5 industrial gardens, which shared the policies for the state-level economic-technological
development zones, in which 37 were approved before 2000 and lied in the east regions and 17
were newly approved after 2000 and centered on the central and western regions.

The various development zones play huge driving forces in the development of national economy.
From the aspect of the state-level economic-technological development zones, 49 state-level
development zones and 5 industrial gardens sharing the policies for the state level development
zones had totally finished 1.5313 trillion Yuan of the regional GDP, 1.0972 trillion Yuan of the
industrial added values (the industrial added values accounting for 71.65% of the GDP), 248.1
billion Yuan of tax revenues, 205.1 billion USD of the total export amounts, 180.4 billion USD of

2 www.shcri.com
 Research Report of Chinese Development Zone Industry, 2009

the import amounts and 19.5 billion USD of actual uses of the foreign funds in 2008, rising by
20.61%, 19.26%, 19.54%, 21.81%, 15.17%, 18.08% and 12.8% respectively over the same period
of last year and the growth rate of the total regional output values were 11.61 percentage points
higher than the national growth rate of the same period.

Affected by the international financial crisis, the economic development speed of the state-level
development zones fell in the latter two quarters in 2008 in China, which was obvious in the
fourth quarter of 2008. As a whole, the growth rate of the industrial added values, the total output
values, revenues from the taxes, total export amounts, total import amounts and the actual use
amounts of the foreign funds of the state-level development zones was declined in different degree
in 2008 compared with those in the third quarter of 2008 and the same period of 2007, in which
the total export amounts were 6.7 and 4.15 percentage points lower than those in the third quarter
of 2008 and the same period of 2007, the growth rate of the actual use amounts of the foreign
funds were reduced by 4.24 and 4.9 percentage points compared with those in the third quarter of
2008 and the same period of 2007. From the aspect of regions, the degree of the economic decline
was more obvious in the eastern state-level development zones than that in the central and western
state-level development zones, where showed the negative growth in some minority regions. The
state-level development zones in the central and western regions were less affected by the
international financial crisis.

The purposes of establishing the hi-tech industrial development zones are to create a favorable
environment for the hi-tech industries through implementing various preferential policies and
perfect service systems related to the high technologies, such as tax relief, and create the
advantages of the intensive industries, attract and gather talent, technology and capital
industrialization environments and speed up the industrializations of the hi-tech achievements.

Since the implementation of the Torch Plans from 1988, the hi-tech industrial development zones
had made huge progress at fast speed in China and made great contributions to the
industrialization development of Chinese hi-tech industry. At present, there are totally 53 hi-tech
industrial development zones set up by Chinese government.

The tariff-free zones are the areas to develop the international trade and bonded businesses
approved by the State Council of PRC, similar to the free trade zones in the global, allowing for
the foreign dealers to invest and operate the international trade and develop the bonded warehouse
service and export processing business etc within the tariff-free zones. At present, 15 tariff-free
zones have been in operation, becoming the new connection of Chinese economy and the global
economy. On 27th April 2000, Chinese government officially approved and set up the export
processing zones monitored by the customers with the purposes of propelling the development of
the processing trade in China and encouraging the expansion of the foreign exports. In order to
facilitate the operation, Chinese government established the export processing zones in the
completed development zones and chose many pilot places. There were 15 export processing
zones for the first batch of pilot.

The border economic cooperative zones and the tourist resorts belong to the scope of the

3 www.shcri.com
 Research Report of Chinese Development Zone Industry, 2009

development zones and share some similarities. First, from the aspect of the development scales
and important positions in the economy, the border economic cooperative zones and the tourist
resorts are inferior to the above mentioned development zones. Besides, they have high
requirements on the location factor. Most border economic cooperative zones are located in the
border areas of China, where are convenient to development businesses with foreign countries.

The border economic cooperative zones are the areas where to develop the border trade and export
processing trade along the border open cities in China. The open-up along the borders is an
important wing for the central and western regions in China. Since 1992, China had had 14 border
economic cooperative zones approved by the State Council. In 2008, these 14 border economic
cooperative zones realized the 20.5 billion Yuan of total regional output values, 8.2 billion Yuan of
industrial added values, 25.7 billion Yuan of total industrial output values, 3.8 billion Yuan of
revenues from taxes, 5.9 billion Yuan of exports, 3.6 billion Yuan of imports and 170 million USD
of actual use amounts of the foreign funds, up by 31%, 47%, 51%, 16%, 24%, 7% and 104%
respectively over the previous year.

More following information can be obtained in this report:

- Definition and Categories of the Development Zones in China
- Present Development Situations of Different Variety Development Zones in China
- Factors affecting the Development of Development Zones in China
- Introductions to Partial Major Development Zones in China
- Introductions to the Policies for Various Variety Development Zones in China
- Prediction on the Development Trends of the Development Zones in China

To get more details, please visit http://www.shcri.com/reportdetail.asp?id=304

4 www.shcri.com
 Research Report of Chinese Development Zone Industry, 2009

5 www.shcri.com