JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018 businesstraveller.comTHIS PAGE
AND OPPOSITE:
Futian CBD;
electronics
stores on
Huaqiang
North Street“We call them billionaire villages,” jokes Grace
Huang , marketing communications manager for Hilton
Futian. “Property prices here used to be RMB10,000
[US$1,510] per square metre, but now they’re
RMB100,000 [US$15,100]. This is the only village left
and according to government plans, it will be removed
by 2019 or 2020 at the latest.”
While the rapid emergence of huge cities in China is
not uncommon, Shenzhen is a special case for a number
of well-documented reasons. In 1979, it was established
as the first Special Economic Zone in China as part
of Deng Xiaoping’s experimentation for reform and
development. The experiment has been a resounding
success. Opening up to foreign investment, combined
with proximity to Hong Kong, turned Shenzhen into
a manufacturing hub. Enormous foreign-run factories
from Foxconn to Apple moved in, and Shenzhen
became an electronics hub, churning out up to 90 per
cent of the world’s gadgets and putting the former
fishing village firmly on the map.
The ongoing changes in Shenzhen are so rapid that
visitors returning every few years are shocked at the
continual rate of transformation. Luohu (Lo Wu) was
the first established district and most important part
of Shenzhen. Today it’s most famous for its shopping
and nightlife, as well as serving as an important border
crossing into Hong Kong. About five years ago, thecommercial focus shifted to Futian, the current CBD
that now hosts the majority of financial institutions
(including the towering Pin An Finance Centre) and
more recently local government offices.
Virtually every international luxury hotel brand has
claimed a piece of the pie: Shangri-La, Four Seasons,
Ritz-Carlton, Marco Polo, Sheraton, Hilton, Langham- and there’s still more to come, with recent signings for
aMarriottandParkHyattinLuohuandaMandarin
Oriental due to open in 2018. “There’s still a lot of
demand,” explains Huang. “We’re seeing more business
travellers than ever. We used to have more leisure
travellers, but now we’re 95 per cent business.”
TECH GIANTS
Growth has already spread beyond the boundaries of the
“new” Futian CBD, moving farther west into Nanshan.
While many cities clamber for the prestige of being
called “Asia’s Silicon Valley”, the title is most frequently
used in relation to Shenzhen. The “factory f loor of
the world” has proven a fertile breeding ground for
technological innovation. After all, there are few better
places to find parts, supplies or manufacturers, with
famous electronic malls like the SEG Electronics Market
in Futian, whose eight f loors offer just about anything
you could imagine, from circuit boards to LED lights.
There’s also the Huaqiang North Commercial Street30