Word: shenzhen
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...financial hub. Faced with these long-term competitive threats, Hong Kong's leaders are laying the groundwork for even closer links with China. In August, a local think tank with ties to the city's top political leadership released a proposal for increasing economic integration with Shenzhen, the Chinese boomtown located next to Hong Kong. A mere fishing village when it was designated, in 1979, as the hothouse of China's economic reforms, Shenzhen now has a population rivaling that of New York City, a deep and comparatively inexpensive labor pool, and a robust manufacturing and high-tech sector...
...Hong Kong's port operations, too, have evolved to complement its neighbor, says Michael DeGolyer, a professor at Hong Kong Baptist University who has studied relations between the city and its mainland economic hinterland. "What Shenzhen ports have been doing is straight-through shipment," DeGolyer says. "You fill a full ship with Wal-Mart stuff, and it goes straight to the U.S." That has left Hong Kong's port - which is managed by Hutchison Whampoa, the same Hong Kong conglomerate that operates Shenzhen's - to concentrate on more logistically complex operations, including breaking down containers for shipment to multiple destinations...
...other measures, the proposal calls for smoothing immigration and customs procedures, coordinating airport and train facilities, and allowing money to flow more easily across the border. The proposal is rooted in a much grander vision than merely cutting bureaucratic red tape, however. The goal in melding Hong Kong and Shenzhen, the report said, is to create a megacity that, by 2020, would surpass London and Los Angeles as an international economic juggernaut. It's a quintessentially capitalist solution befitting a quintessentially capitalist city. Need to grow to keep pace with competitors? Find a merger partner. "I think a closer relationship...
...fact, Hong Kong's flirtation with Shenzhen and the surrounding Pearl River Delta is already being consummated. Last month, top officials from Hong Kong and Shenzhen signed an agreement to study jointly developing infrastructure along the border region between the two cities. And, in July, Chinese President Hu Jintao christened a new bridge linking Hong Kong with the Shekou area of Shenzhen, which creates a fourth land crossing for trucks and tourists to stream back and forth...
...Innovation or Oblivion Hong Kong and Shenzhen could still run into the bugbear of all corporate mergers: a clash of cultures. Hong Kong has the world's most open economy, according to U.S.-based think tank the Heritage Foundation; one with low taxes, a mature legal system and international standards of corporate transparency and regulation. The mainland, for all its explosive growth, remains hamstrung by corruption and a centrally planned economy. Beijing has taken slow, measured steps to open its financial markets, but obstacles remain. Because China's currency, the yuan, is nonconvertible, capital can't flow freely between Hong...