It's a rags-to-riches story: Starting as a remote border town with merely one grain station, restaurant, and traffic light, the Zhuhai Special Economic Zone has become a prosperous, modernized garden-styled coastal city over 40 years of development.

The city's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) climbed from 209 million yuan ($30 million) in 1979 to 343.59 billion yuan ($50 billion) in 2019, while per capita GDP went from 579 yuan ($84) to 175,500 yuan ($25,465). Foreign trade volume grew from $14.53 million to $42.2 billion relying on trade relations with more than 220 countries and regions.

Currently, 42 of the world's top 500 enterprises are doing business in Zhuhai. Meanwhile, locally nurtured Gree Electric Appliances cracked the Global 500 list in 2019, increasing the quality reputation of Chinese-made products.

Modernized Zhuhai (shown is Zhuhai Opera House on Yeli Island in Xianglu Bay against the backdrop of urban areas of Jida and Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge) [Photo by Li Jianshu / Zhuhai Daily]

Accompanying economic growth, Zhuhai has been a pioneer in many fields during the Reform & Opening Up by establishing China's first Sino-foreign cooperative tourism company, setting up China's first cross-border industrial zone, and taking the lead to safeguard the ecological environment through rule of law.

The city's innovation-oriented development resulted in such sci-tech accomplishment as the maiden voyage of the world's largest amphibious aircraft (the AG600), participation with Yunzhou-Tech in Antarctic scientific investigation using the company's unmanned surface vessels, launching of the "Zhuhai-1" remote sensing micro-nano satellite constellation, and opening of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge. 

On the ground level, enterprises and individuals benefit from convenience and efficiency as the time required for business registration has been cut to two days, 165 administrative items are now processed in seconds, and 76 of the 100 affairs most confronting residents are processed citywide.

To improve lifestyle, Zhuhai took the lead in the country in offering 12-year compulsory education, integrated urban-rural medical insurance, and free admission to municipal parks.

Hengqin New Area, the epitome of Zhuhai's deepening cooperation with Macao, is now home to more than 60,000 enterprises. It has so far recorded a fix-asset investment of more than 310 billion yuan ($45 billion) and brought in more than 3,000 Macao enterprises.

This accomplishment resulted in part from endeavors such as Guangdong-Macao Cooperation Industrial Park, Macau-Hengqin Youth Entrepreneurship Valley (Inno Valley HQ), and Guangdong-Macao Cross-Border Financial Cooperation (Zhuhai) Demonstration Zone, but was also facilitated by innovations in cross-border office services, entrepreneurship, and medical insurance.