Shenzhen's meteoric rise over more than four decades a testament to Xi's vision, China's pursuit of high-quality growth

For Canadian entrepreneur Luc Junior Denommee, one of Shenzhen's greatest attractions is not its futuristic skyline or the technology giants that call it home. It is the ease with which an idea can become a product.

In Huaqiangbei, the sprawling electronics marketplace at the heart of the city in Guangdong province, almost everything an entrepreneur needs — from batteries and electronic components to product designers, precision machining services and logistics providers — can be found within easy reach.

The concentration of suppliers and expertise means that an idea can move from the drawing board to a working prototype with remarkable speed, an advantage that impressed Denommee when he first arrived in Shenzhen in 2007.

"Every month, there's something new about the memory, about design. Here is the capital of electronics, I would say, in the world."

Nearly two decades later, the marketplace continues to surprise him with new products and technologies. But Shenzhen has given Denommee something beyond business opportunities: a sense of belonging.

"I feel more at home in Shenzhen than anywhere else in the world," he said. "Here, I'm really part of an ecosystem which is growing. I feel I am living. I am not surviving."

A boy interacts with a robot dog during the Interesting Lifestyle Conference in Longgang district, Shenzhen, in September. [Photo provided to CHINA DAILY]

Spirit of openness

His experience offers a glimpse into a defining feature of Shenzhen's transformation: a city that has drawn people from across China and around the world, allowing their ambitions and ideas to become part of its development.

That spirit of openness and experimentation is also part of the vision President Xi Jinping, who is also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, has laid out for Shenzhen during his tours to the city since 2012.

Through those visits, Xi reaffirmed China's commitment to reform and opening-up, encouraged innovation and charted Shenzhen's development as a pioneer of high-quality growth.

As Shenzhen prepares to host the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Economic Leaders' Meeting next week, the city is once again set to showcase China's economic transformation and its growing connections with the wider world.

The scale of that transformation is striking. Shenzhen's population has grown from 323,900 when it became a special economic zone in 1980 to more than 18.2 million at the end of 2025. Over the same period, its economic output increased from 270 million yuan ($40 million) to 3.87 trillion yuan.

Xi first visited Shenzhen in December 2012, just a month after assuming the Party's top post. The visit, his first inspection tour outside Beijing, came as China faced the challenge of deepening economic reforms and finding new drivers of growth.

He emphasized the importance of respecting the people's pioneering spirit, encouraging bold experimentation and breaking new ground, while underscoring that reform and opening-up must continue.

The message resonated with Shenzhen's history as a city built by successive generations of newcomers, many of whom arrived with limited resources but were determined to build better lives.

For Gao Feng, technical director of Shenzhen Toch Prepress Technology Co, Xi's emphasis on initiative and a pioneering spirit echoes his own journey from an unskilled migrant worker to an accomplished technician.

In 1993, he left his hometown with just 300 yuan, money his mother had painstakingly saved by raising pigs for two years.

After a long-distance bus journey, he arrived in Shenzhen with few skills and little idea of what awaited him.

His first job was packing materials at a construction site. The pay was meager, but he soon noticed that skilled workers could earn several times as much. "I firmly believed that learning a technical skill could change my life," he recalled.

Over the following 15 years, Gao passed all five skill levels to become a certified electrician. His technical expertise earned him national honors. Later, he would pass on the skills that had transformed his own life at a training center bearing his name.

When Xi returned to Shenzhen in October 2018, as China prepared to mark the 40th anniversary of reform and opening-up, the city was confronting a different set of challenges.

Having established itself as a major manufacturing and export center, Shenzhen was increasingly seeking to strengthen technological innovation, develop advanced industries and deepen cooperation within the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

Xi visited an exhibition documenting Guangdong's four decades of reform and inspected the Qianhai-Shekou area, where he called for further institutional innovation and deeper cooperation with Hong Kong.

He emphasized that China's commitment to reform and opening-up remained unchanged and encouraged Shenzhen to pioneer reforms that could be replicated elsewhere.

Two years later, at a city celebration marking the 40th anniversary of its establishment as a special economic zone, Xi laid out a more comprehensive agenda for Shenzhen's next stage of development.

He reflected on Shenzhen's transformation from a small border town into an international metropolis, describing its achievements as a miracle created by the Chinese people in the history of world development.

Xi called on Shenzhen to become a pilot demonstration area of socialism with Chinese characteristics and a model for cities in a modern socialist country.

He set out six priorities: pursuing high-quality development, deepening reform, expanding opening-up, modernizing urban governance, improving people's well-being and advancing the development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

Innovation featured prominently in his speech.

Xi also called for greater investment in basic and applied research, closer integration of industrial and innovation chains, and the development of emerging and future industries, with the aim of building Shenzhen into a globally influential hub for technological and industrial innovation.

Strong supply chains

Today, the extensive manufacturing ecosystem that helped establish Shenzhen's reputation is attracting a new generation of international entrepreneurs.

At Shenzhen InnoX Academy, Saudi Arabian entrepreneur Dalia Khoja has found opportunities to connect directly with engineers, designers and suppliers as she pursues product development involving artificial intelligence. "Here, you can just design it and then order it and you will receive it," she said, explaining that some products can be delivered within two to four days.

Meanwhile, some business leaders said that Xi's overarching vision to develop the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is helping businesses further develop their supply chains.

Wu Guan, founder and CEO of Y-H2O (Shenzhen) Technology Co, said the concentration of businesses across the Greater Bay Area brings together virtually every link in the industrial supply chain. For entrepreneurs, that means access not only to manufacturing capacity but also to people willing to share ideas, form teams and experiment with new technologies.

Wu noted that Shenzhen, or more broadly the Greater Bay Area, is home to a vast number of companies in the hardware sector.

"Together, the region brings together virtually the entire industrial chain. Personally, I think this kind of geographic and industrial advantage is something that remains unmatched anywhere in the world," Wu said.

Hector Emiliano Huidobro Falcon, a Mexican entrepreneur, described coming to Shenzhen as "maybe the best decision" of his life.

He said the concentration of engineers, technologies and entrepreneurial activities has transformed his understanding of how innovation and manufacturing can work together.

"Here I always feel inspired and want to move faster," he said. "You can connect with so many people, get the experience and knowledge from so many talents here, and learn from that."

Home to best, brightest

Xi's 2020 vision went beyond technological progress and economic competitiveness. He stressed that the ultimate purpose of reform and development was to improve people's lives, calling for more open talent policies to attract and cultivate leading scientists, young researchers and high-level innovation teams.

Diana Boraschi, a distinguished professor at Shenzhen University of Advanced Technology's pharmaceutical sciences faculty, said Shenzhen provides an environment where researchers can exchange ideas with talented colleagues from different backgrounds.

Boraschi said diversity is important because when different cultures and different ways of thinking come together, new ideas emerge.

Juan Du, director of the Shenzhen Design Museum and author of The Shenzhen Experiment: The Story of China's Instant City, said Shenzhen's remarkable rise cannot be explained by economic policies or industrial development alone.

The city, she observed, grew during an era of globalization that brought together people, technologies and ideas from across the world. Its capacity to welcome newcomers has been fundamental to its success.

A drone of the food delivery giant Meituan makes a food delivery in Shenzhen in August. WANG WEN/FOR CHINA DAILY

"Shenzhen is made possible by being inclusive," she said.

Gao, the technician, said skilled technicians once were not considered part of the city's highest tier of talent. Now, their experience is receiving greater recognition, and craftsmen like him can exchange ideas with leading scientists, who also listen to their suggestions.

Shenzhen, he said, welcomes both celebrated entrepreneurs and people who have worked their way up from the grassroots.

He describes the relationship between the city and those who settle there as a two-way journey: Shenzhen offers people opportunities to succeed, while their work, skills and ambitions help the city grow.

"If Shenzhen's past four decades were a movie, then every ordinary person in this city would have a part in it," Gao said.