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Laggard to poster boy? China’s big bet on Hainan
Beijing is experimenting with an industrial policy that it hopes will turn a once-overlooked island into a processing powerhouse. It won’t be easy.
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Hainan is making its first steps towards an ambitious goal of becoming a “globally influential” free trade port by 2050.
PHOTO: AFP
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When Shenzhen was designated a special economic zone in 1980, it was little more than a fishing village across the border from Hong Kong. What followed has since become the stuff of legend: a frontier town transformed into China’s technology capital, home to corporate giants, dense supply chains and an entrepreneurial culture that helped drive the country’s remarkable economic ascent.
Now, China’s leadership is hoping to emulate that success in another backwater: Hainan. The southernmost province, a tropical island roughly 50 times the size of Singapore, has been chosen for an ambitious economic experiment aimed at nudging China’s next phase of development away from cheap exports and property-led growth, and towards domestic consumption and industrial upgrading.
