Shaoguan can be said to be a pioneer of modern industry. From 1950s to 1970s, owing to its strategic importance, China’s central government aimed to develop it into a heavy industry base in Southern China. A great number of backbone enterprises including Shaoguan Steel Group Company Limited, Shaoguan Smelting Plant, Shaoguan Excavator Producer, Fankou Lead-Zinc Mine, Dabaoshan Mining Co. , Ltd and suchlike were founded one after another which all contributed to the leading positions Shaoguan industries played in local economy and also made Shaoguan a key industrial base in Guangdong province. New developments have been achieved since 1980s with better layout of light and heavy industries. Since entering the 21st century with a goal of constructing a city with a powerful economy around northern Guangdong province, the city suited its measures to local conditions and the needs of new industries, working vigourously to develop its competitive industries. So far Shaoguan has become a comprehensive industrial city with outstanding resource sectors, strong processing industries and partial key light industries among which the total output value of industries above designated size was 32.25 billion RMB in 2017. As Guangdong province’s steel and special steel manufacturing base, Shaoguan Steel Group Company Limited,the leading steel enterprise, produces 6.5 million tons of steel annually ranked among the top 100 world steel companies and a major ship-plate steel producer around China under the leadership of China Baowu Steel Group Corporation Limited (the merging of two major steel corporations: Baoshan Steel Group Corporation and Wuhan Steel Corporation). On the basis of the Shaoguan steel industrial cluster, Southern China Special Steel Industrial Park takes powder metallurgy, steel further processing and suchlike at its core to extend the industrial chain of Shaoguan steel industry. Known as City of Zinc and Home of Non-ferrous Metal, the Non-ferrous Metal Circular Economy Industrial Base in Shaoguan’ s Renhua county was certified by the Economic and Information Commission of Guangdong Province as the first circular economy industrial base with a planned area of around 400 thousand square meters and the base is upgrading to a key base for non-ferrous metal industry with five features of ecological, environmental friendly, high-tech, high tax creation, and considerable scale. 2015, Shaoguan Cigarettes Factory has had an annual output of over 400 thousand tanks and was ranked as one of the 500 largest industrial enterprises around the nation. Shaoguan Power Plant’ s project of Replacing the Small Units with Large Ones has been put into operation to make a massive construction and reformation on the power grid with an installed capacity of 1860 MW in total. Typically as a dominant industry with over 120 machinery manufacturing enterprises above designated size, the city’s machinery and equipment industry aims to develop an advanced manufacturing industry base for manufacturing basic equipment components and endeavors to possess an excellent capability of producing, developing and completing automotive components. In recent years, industrial park has gradually become a significant growth pole. Guanshao Industrial Park develops rapidly in various industries including machinery manufacturing, electronics, medicine, printing and toys with a primarily planned area of 28.63 square kilometers and 150 square kilometers for further development. Lechang Industrial Park, with a planned area of around 9 million square meters, takes the clockwork, textile and machinery manufacturing as its major projects while Nanxiong Industrial Park takes fine chemistry, electronics and equipment manufacturing as its leading industries with a planned area of around 8 million square meters. Renhua Industrial Park, with an area of around 4.7 million square meters, centers on industries of non-ferrous metal, further processing, machinery manufacturing, electronic information, warehousing and distribution, information-logistics and manufacturing as well as serving. Shixing Industrial Park, with an area of around 8.6 million square meters, prioritizes the industries of Stationery pen, novel material, furniture, non-ferrous, plastics renewable resources, industrial cluster of Three Electrics （Television, Telephone, Computer and other information media). Wengyuan Industrial Park has several specialized departments: Huacai Industrial Park centers on chemical painting with around 5.3 million square meters; Power Supply Base on power-supply industry with around 2.7 million square meters; Lilong Industrial Park on commerce and trade with around 350 thousand square meters; Guangdong-Taiwan Agricultural Park on agriculture planting with around 33 million square meters. Xinfeng Industrial Park prioritizes on developing green building material and rare earth with an area of around 6.7 million square meters. Ruyuan Industrial Park develops industries of electronic aluminum foil, bio-pharmaceutical, new fluorine material, organic food with an area of around 5.5 million square meters. In 2017, Shaoguan industrial parks witnessed the set up of 174 newly operated projects and 59 put-into-operation projects both created 12.5-billion RMB fixed investment. The industrial investment accounted for 62.2% of the city’s total investment which generated 1.538 billion RMB taxes, an increase of 11.7% from the year before. Shaoguan also strides to improve the service for industrial development and operates 63 provincial and municipal engineering technology research centers, 2 provincial business incubators and 2 provincial entrepreneurial center, which ranks in the forefront of Guangdong province. In addition, it pays much attention on investment promotion,attracting 115 projects with total investment of 32.66 billion RMB among which 51 are over 100 million RMB.
