building engines for growth.pdf

How Do SEZs and Industrial Clusters Drive China’s Rapid Development? 13throughout the country. Thus, when Deng Xiaoping made his famoussouthern tour that year, the mission that had started with the creation ofthe first five SEZs had in many respects been accomplished: the “special”economic zones by that time were no longer so special (Yeung, Lee, andKee 2009).Contribution to GDP. Economically, SEZs have contributed significantlyto national GDP, employment, exports, and attraction of foreigninvestment and new technologies, as well as adoption of modern managementpractices, among others. In 2006, the five initial SEZs accountedfor 5 percent of China’s total real GDP, 22 percent of total merchandiseexports, and 9 percent of total FDI inflows. At the same time, the54 national ETDZs accounted for 5 percent of total GDP, 15 percent ofexports, and 22 percent of total FDI inflows (see table 1.3).Because of the large number of SEZs of various types and the difficultyof obtaining recent data (especially from those at the subnational level),it is hard to paint an overall picture of the contributions of the SEZs, butsome estimated aggregations could be obtained based on available datafor 2006 and 2007. In 2006, the 54 state-level ETDZs, 53 state-levelHIDZs, 4 and 15 FTZs accounted for a combined 11.1 percent of China’sTable 1.3 Performance of Initial Five Special Economic Zones andNational Economic and Technological Development Zones, 2006IndicatorTotal employment(millions)as % of China totalReal GDP(RMB 100 millions)as % of China totalUtilized FDI(US$100 millions)as % of China totalMerchandise exports(US$100 millions)as % of China totalTotal population(millions)as % of China totalSEZs152.09,1015.0559.11,68622.1251.9NationalETDZs40.58,1954.513021.61,13814.9——China758100183,0851006031007,6201001,308100Source: National Statistics Bureau 2006.Note: — = not available.