Officials hope that within six years the currently undeveloped land in Qianhai, a special economic zone in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen near the Hong Kong border, will house an international finance district rivaling Wall Street. Qianhai is one of 10 such special zones where the Chinese government plans to try out new and less restrictive financial policies.
What is basically an uninhabited area today is anticipated to become home to a working population of 650,000 with a annual GDP of $25 billion by 2020. The government is currently seeking investors to meet the nearly 400 billion RMB ($65 billion) investment needed to get the project underway. A few foreign investors have shown interest, namely Silverstein Properties, the same developer who built the new One World Trade Center. In order to entice foreign investors, Qianhai boasts of its 15 percent corporate tax rate, which is markedly lower than the national rate of 25 percent and Hong Kong’s rate of 16.5 percent.
The thing that stood out to me most while reading this article was a quote from He Zijun, the deputy director of the Qianhai Authority. He says, “The goal of Qianhai is to be a dream factory for the Chinese dream.” I, like most Americans, have heard of the American Dream since childhood, but this is the first time I’ve ever heard anyone refer to Chinese Dream which makes me wonder, could it be the new development of the 21st century?
Very interesting. It makes me wonder what would happen if China simply opened its entire country. Perhaps that would be too sudden and cause a shock to the system, but these special zones certainly stand out among other Chinese cities in terms of size, growth, and standards of life.