Guangzhou is the capital of Guangdong Province, a national historical and cultural city, a National Central City, an international business center and an integrated transport hub. As the south gate of China, it is located in the geometric center of Asian-Pacific area, adjacent to the South China Sea, Hong Kong and Macao. With a total area of 7,434 km2, it has a population of over 16 million. For more than 2,000 years, Guangzhou, known as the Millennial Commerce Capital, has always been China's important trading port and the origin of ancient Maritime Silk Road.

With over 30 years of reform and opening up, Guangzhou relies on openness to promote development and innovation, and has become an important transport hub, logistics center and trade center in South China. As a core area for attracting international capital, Guangzhou has been transforming from Millennial Commerce Capital to Modern Commerce Capital. In 2016, the GDP of Guangzhou stood at 1.96 trillion Yuan, with the retail sales of consumer goods reaching 0.87 trillion Yuan and the foreign trade volume reaching 0.85 trillion Yuan. Guangzhou's actual use of foreign capital reached 5.7 billion US dollars and overseas investment reached 5.28 billion US dollars. Guangzhou has formed an all-round, wide-ranging and multi-level opening-up pattern and become one of the most open and marketlized regions.

At the end of 2016, the United Nations released two reports that point out Guangzhou is the world’s fastest growing mega-city and tops the list on UNDP's Human Development Index. In the Chinese Cities of Opportunities Report 2016 jointly released by PWC and China Development Research Foundation, Guangzhou ranks the top again.

The main advantages of investment environment in Guangzhou：

1. Well-equipped infrastructure

As for harbor, Guangzhou Port's cargo throughput reached 540 million tons and the container throughput reached 18.85 million TEUs in 2016, which ranked sixth and seventh in the world respectively.

In terms of airport, Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport is a hub for the Belt and Road Initiatives. Handling more than 59.78 million passengers, it was the third busiest airport in China in 2016.

In the field of railway, Guangzhou railway hub is one of China’s four major railway hubs.

In the field of highway, Guangzhou is one of the national highway hubs and one of the most connected cities in the national expressway network.

As for the information port, Guangzhou is one of the three largest major communication hubs, the Internet switching centres and the three major exports of international Internet in China.


2. Powerful industrial base

Guangzhou has now recognized 320 headquarter enterprises. The top ten pillar industries are automobile manufacturing, fine chemical engineering, key equipment, commercial exhibition, banking and insurance business, modern logistics, new generation of information technology, bio-medicine, new materials, new energy and energy saving, environmental protection.

Guangzhou's industrial manufacturing and R & D capabilities are second to none in China. In 2016, the added value of advanced manufacturing and high-tech manufacturing industries increased respectively by 6.6% and 7.5%. The service industry is developed, with the added value accounting for 68.6% of GDP.

By the end of 2016, 288 Fortune Global 500 companies have invested in Guangzhou to set up 797 projects.

3. Impeccable innovation and entrepreneurship support

In Guangzhou, there are two thirds of Guangdong's ordinary universities, 97% of the national key disciplines and all national key laboratories.

Guangzhou is approved as the Self-dependent Innovation Demonstration Area and Comprehensive Pilot Innovation and Reform Core Area. There are more than 120 thousand scientific and technology innovation enterprises, 44 new research and development institutions, and more than 8 million square meters for high-tech business incubator. The daily average number of registered trademarks ranks first among sub-provincial cities.

Guangzhou Science City is approved to be among the first batch of Regional Innovation and Entrepreneurship Demonstration Base. With so many institutions such as Guangzhou Intellectual Property Court, Guangzhou Intellectual Property Trading Centre, the National Trademark Brand Innovation and Entrepreneurship Base, the Trademark Examination Cooperation Center of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce in Guangzhou, Guangzhou can provide strong support and protection for enterprises and individuals.

4. Wealth of institutional innovation

Guangzhou has been approved as national service trade innovation and development pilot, the domestic trade circulation system reform and development pilot, cross-border e-business comprehensive pilot area, the national market procurement method pilot as well as other reform pilots, which provides strong endogenous motivation for the city's institutional innovation in different areas.

Relying on the Nansha Pilot Free Trade Zone, Guangzhou actively explores the establishment of institutional mechanisms, which links up with the international investment trade rules. A total of 209 innovation items have been created, 85 of which have been replicated and generalized in the province and the country. The market supervision of corporate information credit platform and other policies have a leading position in China that boost the economic growth and transformation.

5. Convenient government service

Guangzhou currently focuses on creating a market-oriented, law-based and internationalized business environment and continues to enhance the level of trade and investment facilitation.

The government continues to deepen the reform of administration simplification, fair regulation and high-effective service. A new list of the administrative approval procedures was introduced, 176 items were streamlined in 2016.

Guangzhou has fully launched the "one-window" integration service, put fewer restraints on the registration requirements of business entities, and made business registration available throughout the whole city.

The government has fully replaced business tax with value-added tax. In addition to reducing 52 administrative fees and 8 government-managed funds, it also implemented the policy of reducing the rate of four social insurances and one housing fund.

In 2016, more than 70 billion Yuan has been saved for enterprises in Guangzhou. The cost of per-tax profit per 100 yuan of core business sales of the industrial enterprises above state designated scale is 1.9 Yuan and 2.9 Yuan, lower than the average level of the province and the nation respectively.

Trade facilitation has been improved with the construction of international trade "single window" 2.0 version. There are 13 modules, including cargo declaration, the declaration of the means of transport, cross-border e-commerce, information query, manifest declaration, international conference and exhibition, international express mail, logistics dynamic, three mutual operation, logistics services, import and export license, enterprise qualification, payment and settlement, covering businesses in 21 departments such as customs, inspection and quarantine, border inspection, maritime affairs, foreign exchange, taxation, and Hong Kong affairs.

The burden of enterprises has been released because the declaration fees of customs, inspection and quarantine, which should have been paid for using the "single window", are exempt. Also, the pilot work of exempting the lifting, shifting and warehouse costs of foreign trade enterprises are organized.

6.Pleasant living environment

Guangzhou has improved the level of life service facilitation by creating a clean and neat, secure and orderly urban environment. The air quality is the best among five of China's central cities and the average concentration of PM2.5 has declined by 7.7% in 2016. The green coverage reaches 41.5% and the forest coverage rate is 42%. Cantonese cuisine is one of the eight major cuisines in China, which has a good reputation both at home and abroad, so there is a folk adage in China "Eating in Guangzhou". There are 10 international schools in Guangzhou, and many international medical institutions, catering enterprises, religious sites, etc. Also, there are 52 museums and memorial halls, including the Guangdong Museum and the Museum of the Western Han Dynasty Mausoleum of the Nanyue King, and 19 public libraries. All of these bring conveniences to investors who live in Guangzhou.