In 2024, the total value of imports and exports in Shenzhen reached 4.5 trillion yuan, and Shenzhen once again became "China's No. 1 Foreign Trade City".
Top 10 foreign trade cities in China in 2024
Over the past five years, the Shenzhen Municipal Government Work Report has placed different focuses on the goals of foreign trade work.
In 2021, the focus was on "upgrading the open system". In 2022, it was proposed to "build an international trade center city". In 2023, it emphasized "promoting the 'five-external linkage' of foreign trade, foreign investment, outsourcing, foreign economy and foreign intelligence". In 2024, the emphasis was placed on "achieving new breakthroughs in the construction of international trade hubs".
Shenzhen's construction of foreign trade is increasingly focused on enhancing its level and influence in the global trade landscape. From building a central city to strengthening multi-field interaction, and then to constructing a high-level hub, the goals are becoming clearer and more forward-looking.
Shenzhen Foreign Trade in Past 5 Years
In 2025, Shenzhen plans to expand the export scale of products from its advantageous industries, increase the import of key commodities such as advanced technology and equipment, key components, bulk energy, and high-quality agricultural products, build a national import trade promotion and innovation demonstration zone at a high quality, and continuously explore emerging markets such as the countries along the Belt and Road Initiative, ASEAN, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America.
Why has Shenzhen attracted the attention of the whole world?
The reason is actually quite simple. Shenzhen is the "optimal solution" that they have been searching for in various countries and finally discovered with great surprise.
Let's take a look at a set of data: Shenzhen produces one seventh of the world's smart phones, one eighth of the world's new energy vehicles, 70% of the world's consumer drones, and 60% of the world's mid-to-high-end glasses...
From "Made in Shenzhen" to "Intelligently Made in Shenzhen", behind its decades-long global reputation lies Shenzhen's extraordinary creativity and execution ability. Shenzhen is not only one of the most dynamic cities in the world for scientific and technological innovation, but also one of the regions with the most complete manufacturing categories, the highest concentration and the most complete industrial chain.
There are 12 national high-tech enterprises within one square kilometer of land. Leading enterprises such as Huawei, Tencent and BYD take the lead, and a large number of unicorns, specialized, refined, distinctive and innovative enterprises as well as start-ups form an "innovation array". Shenzhen also has all 31 major manufacturing categories, among which the output of 23 types accounts for more than 10% of the national total. "Find all the upstream and downstream partners within one day and produce products within three days." Scientific research achievements can be quickly transformed into innovative products.
In the currently most popular low-altitude economy sector, Shenzhen is undoubtedly the leader not only in China but also globally. More than 1,700 enterprises in the low-altitude economy industrial chain have gathered in Shenzhen. Many people have heard the saying: "You can build a drone without leaving Shenzhen."
In 2024, Shenzhen will add a total of 94 new unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) routes, carry 776,000 cargo flights, and complete over 28,000 low-altitude manned flights, leading the country in terms of flight scale. By the end of last year, a total of 483 low-altitude take-off and landing sites of various types had been built in the city.
In terms of soft power, Shenzhen is also a typical "outward-oriented city", sparing no effort to improve the business environment.
In 2024, Shenzhen introduced the "20 Measures for Foreign Investment", successively releasing three work plans for optimizing the business environment in terms of marketization, rule of law and internationalization, and launching a series of policy combinations. It invites "global partners" to invest in Shenzhen and offers a large sum of money to support the implementation of major projects.
Shenzhen's goal is quite ambitious: to build itself into "the world's best investment destination".
In the process of attracting foreign capital, the platform has also played an important role. At the 2024 Shenzhen Global Investment Promotion Conference, over 400 projects were negotiated and signed, involving an investment of more than 900 billion yuan. Its appeal to the outside world is still growing.
