Explainer: APEC comes to Shenzhen: where "China Opportunity 2.0" meets the world

Résumé détaillé

Shenzhen's tale has unfolded in step with the country's opening up. Today, China is expanding high-standard opening up. It has granted zero-tariff treatment to 63 countries, while…

BEIJING, Nov. 15 (Xinhua) -- Next week, the gaze of the Asia-Pacific will turn to a young metropolis in southern China that, about four decades ago, was little more than a quiet fishing village.

Shenzhen will play host to the 33rd Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders' Meeting -- the first time in 12 years that China has hosted the top event of the region's highest-level, most extensive and most influential economic cooperation mechanism.

China officially joined APEC in 1991. Shenzhen, adjacent to Hong Kong, will become the third Chinese city after Shanghai and Beijing to welcome this gathering.

Its rise over the past few decades stands as a miracle in the annals of global development, demonstrating what the Chinese people can achieve.

When Shenzhen was designated a special economic zone in 1980, its GDP stood at just 270 million yuan (around 40.2 million U.S. dollars). By 2025, that figure had soared to 3.87 trillion yuan, trailing only Shanghai and Beijing.

China's choice of Shenzhen mirrors a pattern common to other APEC economies, which tend to favor national capitals, major economic or technological hubs, or internationally renowned tourist destinations as host cities.

For the 2026 APEC "China Year," China has set openness, innovation and cooperation as its three priorities. They echo the very forces that have shaped Shenzhen's development: openness is the city's defining feature, innovation its greatest strength, and cooperation a driving force behind its continued growth.

Shenzhen's rise over more than forty years owes much to China's reform and opening up. One of the country's first special economic zones, Shenzhen has been a city of opportunity from the very beginning, pioneering one move after another.

Countless entrepreneurs and innovators have gone there to pursue their ambitions, international investors have established a presence, and Chinese companies such as BYD and Huawei have grown from local businesses into global players.

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