Nationally Important Center City

As an important national center city and the capital of Guangdong Province, Guangzhou will earnestly implement the vision of “Innovative, Coordinated, Green, Open and Shared Development”, continually strengthening the city’s comprehensive functions, boosting the radiation force in leading regional development as well as international influence, sparing no effort to make Guangzhou a prosperous, harmonious, eco-friendly, dynamic and modern metropolis, with unique characteristics.

International Business & Trade Center

The city is known as an ever-thriving foreign trade port in the history of China thanks to its favorable natural environment and the convenient trade route called the Marine Silk Road, thus winning the title of “Millennium Trade Capital.” The Canton Fair, also “China’s No. 1 Trade Fair”, is still the barometer and an important tie of Sino-foreign trade at present.

Canton Fair. The official name of the Canton Fair is China Import and Export Fair, whose history could be traced back to the spring of 1957 when the inaugural session was held in Guangzhou. Canton Fair, celebrating its 60th anniversary this year, has developed into a comprehensive international trade fair in China with the longest history, at the highest level, of the largest scale, with the most comprehensive range of commodities, the most extensive attendance and the best results.

The city has successfully hosted 120 sessions of the Canton Fair, boasting the total export transaction of near1y 1,233.5 billion US dollars and around 7.83 million overseas buyers. To date, each session of Canton Fair covers an area of 1.18 million square meters, attracting over 24,000 enterprises at home and overseas. Nearly 200,000 overseas buyers from more that 210 countries and regions come to Canton Fair, total trade volume reached 30 billion US dollars. Canton Fair has become China’s No.1 foreign trade promotion platform as well as the barometer and bellwether of the nation’s foreign trade, the window, the epitome and the symbol of China’s opening-up to the world.

Chinese Renowned City of Historical & Cultural Heritage

Guangzhou is among one of the first batch of Chinese renowned historical and cultural cities, the starting point of the Marine Silk Road, the center of Lingnan Culture, the cradle of pre-modern Chinese revolution and the frontier of China’s reform and opening-up. The city is blessed with deep historical and cultural background and unique cultural characteristics.

Countless historical key figures lived in Guangzhou, generation after generation, including Ren Xiao from the Qin Dynasty, Zhao Tuo from the Han Dynasty as well as Qu Dajun, a renowned scholar, Hong Xiuquan, a peasant uprising leader, Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao, both thinkers as well as politicians, from the Qing Dynasty, not to mention Sun Yat-sen, who led the Chinese democratic revolution to overthrow millenniums of feudal rule. These celebrities made outstanding contributions to the formation and development of Guangzhou as a renowned city.

International Integrated Transportation Hub

Guangzhou is the “Southern Gate” of China, a major national railway hub and an international information harbor, boasting complete hub-like land, sea and air infrastructures and the highlighted function as a comprehensive gate city. In 2016, the city upheld the vision to construct “International Integrated Transportation Hub”, attaching great importance to creating “Three Strategic Hubs”, namely international navigation hub, international aviation hub and international scientific and technological innovation hub, and earnestly creating the “Hub City” and the “Metropolis of Public Transportation”.

Three Centers & One System

As one of the first Chinese cities opened for foreign trade, Guangzhou is also one of the nation’s tier-1 cities, boasting advanced infrastructure and favorable business environment. During the “13th Five-Year Plan Period (2016-2020)”, Guangzhou will step up efforts in constructing an international navigation center, a logistics center, a trade center and a modern financial service system, with consolidating its status as a millennium trade capital at the core, trying to secure itself a favorable position during the new round of high-level and fierce competition to attract more investment.

Baiyun International Airport. As one the nation’s top three international aviation hubs, Baiyun International Airport finished the total landing and take-off of 435,000 airplanes in 2016 as well as 59. 78 million person-times of passeger throughput and 1.65 million tons of cargo and mail throughput. The airport also opened 27 new international lines in the same year, finishing 663,000 tons of import and export cargo and 13.8 million person-times of passenger throughput.

At present, Guangzhou is home to three major railway stations for passenger transport, namely Guangzhou Railway Station, Guangzhou East Railway Station and Guangzhou South Railway Station. At present, the three major passenger stations send bullet trains directly to 16 provincial capitals of the nation and ordinary trains to 29 provincial capitals. In 2016, all three major railway stations in Guangzhou dispatched a total of 130 million person-times of passengers. The city officially launched one of the China Railway Express lines on August 28，2016 and realized the normalized operation, turning it into an important platform to implement the “Belt and Road” strategy of the nation.

Nansha Port Area of Guangzhou Port. Located on the Longxue Island at the southern most tip of Guangzhou, Nansha Port Area is an important transportation hub linking South China, the Pearl River Delta, Hong Kong and Macao with domestic and overseas ports. It is also at the core of Guangzhou’s vision to build an international shipping center. The port has opened a total of 79 international shipping lines, reaching every corner of the world.