China's hi-tech future emerges in Shenzhen 中国高科技的未来在深圳

Forget Beijing and Shanghai. China’s economic future is emerging in Shenzhen, according to Associated Press, an American multinational news agency.

Formerly a collection of fishing enclaves next door to Hong Kong that became the epicenter of China’s manufacturing-driven miracle, Shenzhen is reinventing itself again by staking its future growth on finance, technology and culture.

The metropolis teeming with millions of migrant workers is home to some of China’s biggest and hottest companies. Many are led by a new wave of young entrepreneurs hoping to build global brand recognition.

Innovative new companies are drawn by Shenzhen’s well-established manufacturing supply chains and transport links, proximity to Hong Kong’s banking and financial expertise, and better traffic, milder weather and less air pollution than Beijing and Shanghai.

“Shenzhen is becoming the new frontier for technology because it has the infrastructure for whoever wants to turn their ideas into products,” said Eric Pan, founder of Seeed Technology, a contract manufacturer for “makers” — tinkerers, hackers and inventors.

Pan quit a job at Intel in Beijing and moved to Shenzhen seven years ago. He helped foster the city’s “maker faire” movement, festivals that celebrate arts, crafts, engineering and open-source technology that have been spreading around the world over the past decade.

“People rush over to Shenzhen. They are young, they are reckless and they shape the city. I think that’s the fundamental difference from other cities in China,” Pan said.

Emerging industries such as information technology, biotech, green energy and new materials now account for about 40 percent of Shenzhen’s economic output, Mayor Xu Qin said last month, according to State media.

“For us, everything is made here in Shenzhen or in the surrounding areas. All your suppliers are here, all your spare parts are here. It just made natural sense to start here,” said Carl Pei, the 26-year-old co-founder of Android smartphone maker OnePlus. The 3-year-old company scored a surprise hit with its first device, the OnePlus One, selling more than 1 million units in a marketing campaign that relied on social media buzz.

Christopher Balding, an economics professor at Peking University’s Shenzhen-based graduate HSBC School of Business, says Shenzhen’s business environment is more open to hardworking newcomers than those of other Chinese cities where State-owned industries dominate.

“It’s a relatively safe bet that in 10 years the tech sector in Shenzhen will be continuing to grow and thrive and kind of be the Chinese Silicon Valley,” Balding said.