Guangzhou boasts 345 Fortune 500 companies and over 40,000 foreign-invested enterprises. In 2023, Guangzhou's new energy vehicle exports surged 4.7 times year-on-year, and cross-border e-commerce flourished with import and export volume exceeding 200 billion yuan, up 45% year-on-year. On August 27th, the Guangzhou Academy of Social Sciences (GZASS) and Social Sciences Academic Press (China) jointly released the "Blue Paper on Guangzhou's Internationalization Development (2024)." The Blue Paper objectively analyzes Guangzhou's latest internationalization development level in 2023 from aspects such as urban competitiveness, foreign trade and investment, and international exchanges, and conducts research on future development paths.
The Blue Paper highlights that Guangzhou's international business environment continued to improve in 2023, attracting numerous high-end resources. The city currently hosts 345 Fortune 500 companies and over 40,000 foreign-invested enterprises.
In terms of foreign trade, Guangzhou achieved a total import and export volume of 1,091.43 billion yuan in 2023, with exports amounting to 650.26 billion yuan and imports to 441.16 billion yuan. "New trio" products like new energy vehicles, lithium batteries, and photovoltaic products shone brightly in exports, reaching 12.89 billion yuan for the year, a 1.3-fold increase year-on-year. Notably, new energy vehicle exports surged 4.7 times, providing strong support for Guangzhou's foreign trade.
The Blue Paper notes that Guangzhou's cross-border e-commerce import and export volume exceeded 200 billion yuan in 2023, up more than 45% year-on-year. Over the past decade, Guangzhou's cross-border e-commerce import and export scale has grown 136 times, with import scale ranking first in China for nine consecutive years, solidifying its reputation as a leading cross-border e-commerce hub.
Despite challenges like sluggish global economic recovery, high inflation, and a deteriorating international investment environment, Guangzhou's outbound investment maintained rapid growth in 2023. By the end of 2023, Guangzhou had invested in over 2,000 non-financial projects in 92 countries and regions worldwide, with a cumulative Chinese investment of nearly 27 billion dollars.
Guangzhou continued to drive key infrastructure construction for air, sea, and land transportation hubs in 2023. The East 4 and West 4 corridors projects of Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport officially commenced operations at the end of 2023, and significant progress was made in the third-phase expansion project, connecting T1 and T2, creating the world's largest single terminal.
In terms of passenger capacity restoration, Baiyun International Airport surpassed 63 million passengers in 2023, ranking first among domestic airports and achieving its fourth consecutive annual passenger throughput title. With an average daily passenger throughput of 224,000, it became the busiest domestic airport in terms of daily passenger flow in 2023. By the end of 2023, Baiyun International Airport had collaborated with airlines to restore, add, and increase the frequency of over 100 international passenger routes, with over 1,000 weekly international and regional passenger flights.
In international shipping, Guangzhou Port handled approximately 680 million tons of cargo in 2023, up 2.9% year-on-year, and 25.41 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of container throughput, up 2.2% year-on-year, ranking fifth and sixth globally in terms of throughput, respectively. Nansha Port has opened over 150 international liner routes, with over 120 routes along the "Belt and Road" routes.