Can cars fly in the future? It’s true!

“With four propellers spinning at high speed, the two-person intelligent electric flying vehicle slowly took off, and a strong gust of wind immediately swept around it.” On February 27, during the Guangzhou High-Quality Development Media Research Tour, reporters witnessed firsthand the flight of XPeng Huitian’s Traveler X2. Currently, the company is developing the X3—a land-air coupled flying car that will one day be able to drive on roads as well as fly in the sky. Undoubtedly, this development opens up new possibilities for the future growth of Guangzhou’s automotive industry.

In 2022, Guangzhou’s automobile production exceeded 3.1 million vehicles, ranking first among Chinese cities for the fourth consecutive year. At the same time, this exceptionally high output means that one out of every nine vehicles produced in China comes from Guangzhou, making the automotive industry a cornerstone of Guangzhou’s manufacturing sector.

In recent years, as issues such as "being stuck in key technologies" have become increasingly prominent, the country has set the goal of building a manufacturing powerhouse. As a result, regions across the country have launched a transformation from traditional manufacturing to smart manufacturing, making this shift the preferred path for high-quality development in the manufacturing sector.

Guangzhou boasts a strong manufacturing base and a relatively complete industrial chain, possessing... 35 out of 41 major industrial categories.

In recent years, Guangzhou has placed increasing emphasis on the development of its manufacturing sector.

Whether it is In 2015, manufacturing and service industries provided “dual-wheel drive.” Whether it was the “implementation of a strategy to build a strong manufacturing city” in 2017 or last year’s initial proposal of “building a city on manufacturing”—

Guangzhou is steadily advancing toward becoming a city driven by manufacturing, taking one step at a time. Heaven rewards those who work diligently; effort never goes to waste. Every small step adds up to a great journey—perseverance will surely lead to success.

With the easing of pandemic restrictions, regions across the country are now engaged in a fierce race to boost their economies. The Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions have taken the lead by chartering flights overseas to secure orders, while Guangdong kicked off the year with an inspiring conference on high-quality development. Across the country, various regions are actively setting ambitious goals for high-quality development.

Last year, Guangdong With a GDP of approximately 13 trillion yuan, Guangdong has consistently ranked first nationwide for 34 consecutive years, maintaining its overall economic advantage. However, achieving high-quality economic development remains a daunting task—and this is especially true for Guangzhou, the provincial capital.

Over the past three years of the pandemic, while people’s daily commutes and lifestyles have been subtly transformed, certain business and industrial development paths have also begun to shift—evidence of which can be seen in Guangzhou’s economic data.

As is well known, the pandemic has hindered interpersonal communication and dealt a significant blow to traditional service industries—among which the catering and tourism sectors have been hit hardest. Last year, the tertiary sector accounted for... The tertiary sector now accounts for 71% of GDP. This structure of the economy makes Guangzhou’s economy more vulnerable to the impact of pandemics. At the same time, during severe outbreaks, logistics have at times been disrupted, affecting numerous industrial chains. Whether it was the Wuhan outbreak in early 2020 or the Shanghai outbreak in the first half of 2022, the shock to the automotive industry has drawn widespread public attention. As the automotive industry is one of Guangzhou’s pillar industries, automobile manufacturing accounts for roughly one-quarter of the city’s value-added in large-scale industrial enterprises. From an industrial perspective, this means that Guangzhou’s economy is facing a double blow.

It’s worth noting that, despite this intense shock, Guangzhou’s economic growth rate last year still outperformed other Tier-1 cities. This was made possible by the emergence of new vitality in strategic emerging industries such as advanced manufacturing, which have become a new driving force.

In 2022, the “3+5” strategic emerging industries across the city achieved an added value of 887.9 billion yuan, accounting for 30.8% of the GDP—a share that has risen significantly. This means that nearly one-third of the city’s economic growth was driven by these emerging industries. Among them, the three major pillar emerging industries played a leading role: next-generation information technology, smart and new-energy vehicles, and bio- and pharmaceutical health together saw their added value grow by 5.4%. In particular, high-tech manufacturing achieved an annual increase in added value of 8.1%, and its share of the city’s industrial added value from enterprises above designated size rose to 61.6%.

Advanced manufacturing is undoubtedly a key engine for high-quality economic development. The level of advanced manufacturing development in a city depends not only on the leadership of leading manufacturing enterprises but also on the digital and intelligent transformation of a broad range of small and medium-sized enterprises.

Tanzhi Technology is in Guangzhou. The “Unicorn” innovative enterprise has been named among the Top 500 Chinese New Economy Companies for 2022. Leveraging big data profiling technology, they have built a comprehensive enterprise graph database covering 160 million business entities across China. “As the pioneer of intelligent sales SaaS, Tanji is bringing cutting-edge big data and AI technologies to all industries, enabling digital and intelligent transformation across the board, helping SMEs reduce costs, improve efficiency, and achieve high-quality development,” said Huang Junqiang, co-founder of Tanji Technology, in an interview with reporters.

In fact, there are many innovative enterprises like Tanji Technology in Guangzhou. As of last year, the city’s number of high-tech enterprises had exceeded— 12,300 companies. Nineteen enterprises were included in the Hurun Global Unicorn List 2022. Among them, nine are newly designated unicorns, making Guangzhou one of the three global cities with the largest number of newly added unicorns. These unicorns, deeply rooted in their respective fields, will also become a new driving force behind Guangzhou’s high-quality economic development.

Manufacturing-based city development

In the 91,500-square-meter final assembly workshop, six-axis robots can be seen working in an orderly manner everywhere. Here, one electric vehicle rolls off the production line every 60 seconds... On the intelligent production line of GAC Aion in Panyu District, you can see Guangzhou’s manufacturing prowess and dynamism at every turn.

GAC Aion Established Over the past five years and more, the company has achieved an average annual compound growth rate exceeding 120%, and its industry ranking has risen from 16th to its current 3rd place. In 2022, cumulative sales reached 271,000 vehicles, representing a year-on-year increase of 126% and setting a new record for sales growth rate. The development of GAC Aion epitomizes the “Guangzhou Speed” in the new-energy vehicle sector. Last year, Guangzhou’s output value and production volume of new-energy vehicles both reached 44.661 billion yuan, increasing by 1.2 times and 1.1 times year-on-year, respectively. Promote the transformation of the automotive industry through intelligent, connected, and digital technologies.

The special feature of GAC Aion lies in its use of... Over the past five years, we’ve set ourselves on the fast track toward high-quality development. By establishing a stable, locally-based supply chain network in Panyu District, we’ve maximized the agglomeration effect of the automotive industry and brought tangible benefits to the local community. Currently, driven by GAC Aion, Panyu’s automotive industry cluster has grown to include more than 40 automotive parts and related projects, essentially forming a complete “three-electric” integrated industrial chain for smart, connected, new-energy vehicles. Moreover, Zheng Chunqi, Deputy General Manager of GAC Aion, revealed: “Currently, Aion’s suppliers within Guangdong Province account for 65% of its total supply base. As the ‘chain leader’ in the Greater Bay Area, we’ve established a network of 126 Tier-1 suppliers and hundreds of upstream supply-chain enterprises and projects that are all sourced from within the province, directly contributing an annual output value of 20 billion yuan.”

The development of GAC Aion has demonstrated the transformative power of intelligent manufacturing to the market and provided an excellent vantage point for observing Guangzhou’s rise as a manufacturing hub. Today, China is shifting its economic development model from reliance on investment, real estate, and exports toward one driven by consumption, manufacturing, and technological innovation. Increasing the share of manufacturing in the economy and enhancing its technological content have become crucial pathways for achieving high-quality economic growth. Currently, Guangzhou has announced its commitment to building itself into a manufacturing powerhouse and is fully implementing a strategy aimed at strengthening advanced manufacturing. Looking ahead, how can Guangzhou pioneer new areas and new growth tracks to further advance its high-quality development? Recently, at the “Understanding Guangzhou’s High-Quality Development” forum, Huang Qifan proposed that to drive Guangzhou’s high-quality development, the city should place particular emphasis on promoting the intelligentization, service orientation, and green transformation of its manufacturing sector.

In fact, the “Guangzhou Industrial and Information Technology Development” released last year... In the 14th Five-Year Plan, Guangzhou plans to build itself into a global benchmark city for the integration of digital and industrial sectors during the 14th Five-Year period. Among the five key emerging pillar industries that will be prioritized for development, the smart connected and new-energy vehicle industries are the strongest.

Currently, Guangzhou has established a system centered around... With a complete automotive industry chain centered on 12 vehicle manufacturers and attracting over 1,200 component suppliers, as well as a continuous emergence of specialized, sophisticated, and innovative enterprises, the three major automotive industry clusters in the eastern, southern, and northern regions each boast an output value exceeding 100 billion yuan. Meanwhile, Guangzhou’s automotive industry is accelerating its pace of self-renewal and iterative upgrading, and the penetration rate of new-energy vehicles continues to rise. In 2022, the city’s production of new-energy vehicles surged by 1.1 times, accounting for an increase of 5 percentage points in the city’s overall vehicle production share year-on-year. At the same time, retail sales of new-energy vehicles rose by approximately 80% year-on-year, increasing their share of the city’s total automotive retail sales by 11.4 percentage points over the previous year. Looking ahead, with the commencement of construction of Yinpai Battery—a project invested in by GAC Aion with an investment exceeding 10 billion yuan—and the establishment of a multi-billion-yuan automotive electronics plant by ZF, a Fortune Global 500 company, Guangzhou’s core new-energy vehicle industrial chain will be further strengthened, further highlighting Guangzhou’s confidence in its “industry-first, manufacturing-based” development strategy and ensuring steady and sustainable economic growth for the city.

Attract investment to boost production.

A strong industry makes for a strong economy. To build a modern industrial system, Guangzhou has proposed adhering to the strategy of prioritizing industry and making manufacturing the cornerstone of the city’s development, with an eye toward the future. In 2023, Guangzhou’s goal for establishing itself as a manufacturing hub is to achieve an annual increase of over 8% in value-added industrial output from enterprises above designated size, with industrial investment exceeding 180 billion yuan—a growth rate of 45%. Behind these targets lies the fact that, over the past four years, Guangzhou’s industrial investment has consistently surpassed 100 billion yuan annually. Last year, manufacturing investment reached 96.8 billion yuan, representing a 20% increase. As a result, the core competitiveness of Guangzhou’s manufacturing sector has continued to strengthen. Moreover, Guangzhou has surged to 10th place in the global “Nature Index—Research Cities” ranking, placing its overall level of scientific and technological innovation among the world’s leading group.

If the integration of manufacturing and technology relies on talent, then the clustering of industries and their efforts to grow stronger, bigger, and better require the impetus of capital—especially so for the development of advanced manufacturing. This is because innovation in manufacturing involves large-scale investments and long investment cycles. The “technology-industry-finance” approach has become the industry’s common choice.

In our country, the financial market is dominated by indirect financing, primarily in the form of bank credit, with a low proportion of direct financing. “Increasing the share of direct financing” has long been a key issue in financial market reform, and among various forms of direct financing, equity financing has been relatively more active.

In recent years, governments across the country have been rushing to establish government-guided funds. According to incomplete statistics, the number of guided funds established by governments at all levels has now reached— More than 2,000 funds—such as the 300-billion-yuan government-backed equity investment fund system established in Hefei and the 200-billion-yuan industrial innovation cluster development fund in Suzhou—while government-guided mother funds are relatively rare.

On February 18, Guangzhou established the Guangzhou Industrial Mother Fund, with a scale of 150 billion yuan, and the Guangzhou Venture Capital Mother Fund, with a scale of 50 billion yuan, drawing significant attention from the industry. Among these, the 150-billion-yuan Guangzhou Industrial Mother Fund adopts a corporate structure and leverages its “investment-driven attraction” function to directly support Guangzhou’s strategy of “prioritizing industry and building the city on manufacturing.” It will focus on investing in key industrial sectors such as semiconductors and integrated circuits, new energy, biopharmaceuticals and health, advanced manufacturing, next-generation information technology, and new consumption. In collaboration with leading enterprises, industry giants, and top-tier institutions, the fund will help build an industrial fund cluster worth over 600 billion yuan.

And The 50-billion-yuan Guangzhou Innovation Investment Mother Fund supports Guangzhou’s science and technology innovation strategy and leverages social capital. Over several years, the fund aims to build a venture capital ecosystem worth over 200 billion yuan, focusing on early-stage, small-scale, technology-driven, and innovative enterprises.

As we can see, the two flagship funds recently established in Guangzhou have distinct positioning. They are neither typical government-guided funds nor simple market-oriented funds; rather, by fully leveraging existing state-owned resources, they aim to revitalize Guangzhou’s existing assets, expand its incremental growth, and inject new momentum into the city’s industrial development.

A single tree cannot make a forest. In the view of Zhang Zhengang, a second-level professor at the School of Business Administration at South China University of Technology and director of the Guangzhou Digital Innovation Research Center, for Guangzhou’s industries to grow stronger and bigger, it is crucial not only to foster seamless integration among different industries but also to develop complementary service infrastructure. The development of these industries calls for collaborative integration, and capital plays a role akin to flowing water—connecting and bringing together high-end resources from all stages of the industry’s upstream, midstream, and downstream sectors.

Guangzhou has launched a new round of high-quality manufacturing development, taking one step at a time. Heaven rewards those who work diligently; effort never goes to waste. Every small step adds up to a great journey—perseverance will surely lead to success.