 The
Pearl River delta (PRD) has been a crucial driver of China's economic
growth, a key destination for foreign investment, and a platform
for the country's growing integration into the global economy for
more than two decades since China's economic reforms.
The PRD's role in China's economy is pivotal. Home to less than
3 percent of China's population, it contributes almost 7 percent
of its GDP. The PRD economy, measured in purchasing power parity
(PPP) terms, is larger than the national economies of Malaysia,
Portugal, and Greece, two-thirds the size of the Philippine economy,
and just under half the GDP of Australia.
The PRD's economic importance in China stems from early economic
reforms, started experimentally in the Shenzhen and Zhuhai special
economic zone (SEZs), that quickly spilled over to adjacent cities
and towns. Foreign direct investment (FDI), initially from Hong
Kong (which shifted 70 percent of its industrial capacity to the
PRD in less than a decade) and then from Taiwan, fueled massive
manufacturing growth and exports. Since the mid-1990s, large influxes
of FDI have originated from Japan, the United States, and other
countries. Most investment, particularly from Hong Kong and Taiwan,
has been in low value-added manufacturing, creating jobs for huge
pools of low-cost, largely female migrant labor from inland provinces.
The PRD includes: |
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