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Guangzhou Economy
Among the largest cities in the country, Guangzhou is the
transportation, industrial, financial, and trade center of China. It is a
special economic development zone and an important trading point with Hong Kong.
It has an integrated steel complex, paper mills, a long-established textile
industry (silk, cotton, jute, and more recently synthetic fibers), and factories
producing tractors, machinery, machine tools, newsprint, refined sugar, small
appliances, tires, bicycles, sports equipment, porcelain, cement, and chemicals.
Traditional arts and crafts, principally ivory and jade
carvings, are still produced. The hub of water transportation along the Pearl
River, it is the southern terminus of the Guangzhou-Wuhan RR. It has a large
international airport and is linked with Hong Kong by the Guangzhou-Jiulong RR.
Highways completed in the 1990s connect it with cities on the coast. Guangzhou
is one of the marketplaces for China's world trade; great national trade
expositions, held there every spring and fall (since 1957), attract thousands of
business people from all over the world.
Guangzhou is the economic centre of the Pearl River Delta,
placing it in the heart of one of mainland China's leading commercial and
manufacturing regions.
In 2003, the GDP per capita was ¥38,568 (about US $4,660),
ranking the city eighth among 659 Chinese cities.
The Chinese Export Commodities Fair, also called "Canton
Fair", is held each spring and autumn. Inaugurated in the spring of 1957,
the Fair is a major event for the city.
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