Luohu is home to about 40,000 Hong Kong residents and some 6,400 Hong Kong-invested enterprises and businesses. Compared with other districts in Shenzhen, Luohu enjoys unique advantages in terms of residents' communication and integration, connected infrastructure and industrial synergy and complementarity with Hong Kong.
To further expand the space for Shenzhen-Hong Kong cooperation, Luohu has recently launched a service system for Hong Kong residents and Hong Kong-funded enterprises and businesses in the district.
According to Xia Dong, deputy district mayor of the Luohu government, Luohu is implementing a series of specific assistance measures for the Hong Kong-invested industries, including the catering, professional services, emerging strategic and cultural creative sectors.
Xia said that Luohu is positive that it can become the first choice for Hong Kong enterprises to invest on the Chinese mainland, and has the confidence to undertake more high-quality investment projects from Hong Kong, as well as the ability to build a higher-level open platform for cooperation with Hong Kong.
Luohu has numerous links with Hong Kong. Of the seven Shenzhen-Hong Kong land ports, three are in Luohu. Among them, the Luohu Port is the first port connecting Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland, and also the port with the largest passenger flow between Shenzhen and Hong Kong. The Wenjindu Port is the only exit port designated for “l(fā)ive livestock and aquatic animals supplied to Hong Kong.” The Liantang Port is the newest comprehensive land port between the two cities.
“Taking advantage of its unique location, Luohu will speed up planning and developing strategic emerging industries, and work together with Hong Kong to build a cross-border consumption center, a cross-border science and technology innovation cooperation zone and a cross-border industrial cooperation zone through the ‘four-chain coordination’ of industrial chain, innovation chain, talent chain and value chain,” said Xia.
He added that Luohu will focus on development in cross-border consumption, cross-border finance, cultural tourism and other fields to build a leading consumer hub. It will also focus on R&D services, inspection and testing, sci-tech and finance, culminating in a cooperation zone for sci-tech services. Luohu will also create a coordinated development zone for advanced manufacturing and promote the development of biomedicine, new-generation information technology, and the digital economy.
Relying on the Luohu, Wenjindu and Liantang ports and the surrounding areas, Luohu is trying its best to build a pilot zone of the Shenzhen-Hong Kong port economic belt, and promote the connectivity of Shenzhen and Hong Kong in facilities, rules, people-to-people exchanges and industries. Likewise, Luohu is playing a unique role in supporting Hong Kong’s integration into the overall development of the country.
Luohu is well aware that the integration of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and the integration of Shenzhen and Hong Kong are, first and foremost, the integration of people.
That explains why Luohu issued policies offering services for Hong Kong and Macao professionals in the district, making it easier for Hong Kong and Macao compatriots to work and live in Luohu.
For the professionals, Luohu not only provides a one-time living allowance of 60,000 yuan ($9,444), but also supports their children's education, their medical services and housing.
For the employees and those who start businesses in line with the industrial orientation of Luohu and who are identified as "elite talents" of the district, they have access to more than 20 kinds of special services such as relocation subsidies, housing and entrepreneurship support.
Luohu has signed strategic cooperation framework agreements with international enterprises as well, and jointly launched the Shenzhen-Hong Kong young talent exchange program, providing a package of support targeting Hong Kong youth to work and live in Luohu.
Luohu was a leader district of opening-up in the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone. Therefore, many Hong Kong enterprises began their business on the Chinese mainland in Luohu before expanding operations in the national market.
Some Hong Kong businesspeople said that after more than 40 years of development, Shenzhen has become an international metropolis, and the integrated development of Shenzhen and Hong Kong represents the trend of the times. They are happy to see that Luohu is adopting new policies and taking new industrial space measures to continuously optimize its business environment.
More and more Hong Kong enterprises hope to develop in Luohu and take part in the integrated development of Shenzhen and Hong Kong.
Zhang Xueji, vice-president of Shenzhen University, said, “In the future, the Shenzhen-Hong Kong integrated development will become closer, and that will bring opportunities to Luohu.”
He said that the three industries of energy, information and health indicate the trends of future development, and new opportunities will be born under interdisciplinary industries. Luohu can combine information technology with the health industry, and explore its unique development mode in the future.