You may not have noticed it yet but the neighbouring Zhuhai Special Economic Zone is now bigger – much bigger. Last month the zone was expanded to include the entire urban area of the Zhuhai municipality. The zone now covers 1,687.8 square km of land and 5,965.2 square km of sea. Unlike in the past, new enterprises established in the expanded zone will not benefit from the same preferential tax policies as those already operating there. According to some experts, the expansion of the Zhuhai Special Economic Zone will boost the region’s economic development. More importantly, it will clear up the mess caused by having different rules in different parts of the greater Zhuhai municipality. Professor Zheng Tianxiang of the Centre for Studies of the Pearl River Delta at Sun Yat-Sen University points out that, before, several elements of the infrastructure important for the economic development of Zhuhai, such as the port, airport and the railway to Guangzhou, were outside the zone, as were key industries such as the marine engineering and equipment manufacturing, aerospace and petrochemical industries. By increasing the zone’s area, the State Council has brought all under one umbrella, Mr Zhen says. He believes this will be crucial for the cohesion and development of the greater Zhuhai municipality, improving its competitiveness. Yang Zhenghu, chairman of the Guangdong Contemporary Economic Research Centre, says that before Zhuhai had a “one city, two jurisdictions” system, meaning that there was one set of rules for companies inside the special economic zone and another for those outside. Mr Yang says this made management of the municipality much more challenging, resulting in uneven development and income differences between the two parts of Zhuhai. The decision to integrate the urban area of the municipality with the special economic zone will improve regulation and boost the urbanisation and modernisation of Zhuhai, he says.
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