The economy of Guangdong is one of the most prosperous in China. Guangdong is located in southern China, bordering on Fujian Province to the east, Hunan Province to the north, Guangxi Autonomous Region to the west and the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau to the south. It is also the largest economy of a sub-national entity in terms of GDP (almost US$2.0 trillion[1] as of 2021) in all of Asia and 3rd largest sub-national entity in the world.
In 2021, the gross regional product (GRP) is about $1.95 trillion,[2] with its per capita GDP of 98,700 RMB ($15,570 in nominal and $ 23,598 in PPP).[3] Guangdong has been the largest province by GDP since 1989 in Mainland China.[4] In 2021, Guangdong's GDP was slightly larger than South Korea, the world's tenth largest economy.[5] Guangdong's GDP by nominal is greater than the GDPs of all other BRICS states, except India.[6]
By Purchasing power parity (PPP) term, as of 2021, Guangdong's economy has a gross regional product (GRP) of $2.98 trillion,[7] ranking between the United Kingdom and Italy with a GDP of $3.34 trillion and US$ $2.71 trillion respectively, the 10th and 11th largest in the world respectively.[8]
This is a trend of official estimates[9] of the gross domestic product of the Province of Guangdong:
| align=center colspan=10 | Historical GDP of Guangdong Province for 1978 –present (SNA2008)[10] (purchasing power parity of Chinese Yuan, as Int'l.dollar based on IMF WEO April 2020[11]) | |||||||||
| align=center rowspan=3 | year | align=center colspan=4 | GDP | align=center colspan=3 | GDP per capita (GDPpc) based on mid-year population | align=center colspan=2 | Reference index | |||
| align=center colspan=3 | GDP in millions | align=center rowspan=2 | real growth (%) | align=center colspan=3 | GDPpc | align=center colspan=2 | exchange rate 1 foreign currency to CNY | |||
| CNY | USD | PPP (Int'l$.) | CNY | USD | PPP (Int'l$.) | USD 1 | Int'l$. 1 (PPP) | |||
| 2019 | 10,767,110 | 1,560,790 | 3,078,960 | 6.3 | 94,172 | 13,651 | 26,929 | 6.8985 | 3.497 | |
| 2018 | 9,994,520 | 1,510,340 | 2,856,390 | 6.8 | 88,781 | 13,416 | 25,373 | 6.6174 | 3.499 | |
| 2016 | 8,085,491 | 1,217,273 | 2,306,121 | 7.5 | 74,016 | 11,143 | 21,111 | 6.6423 | 3.5061 | |
| 2015 | 7,402,743 | 1,188,546 | 2,085,809 | 8.0 | 68,629 | 11,019 | 19,337 | 6.2284 | 3.5491 | |
| 2014 | 6,890,143 | 1,121,662 | 1,940,721 | 7.8 | 64,491 | 10,499 | 18,165 | 6.1428 | 3.5503 | |
| 2013 | 6,345,544 | 1,024,599 | 1,774,034 | 8.5 | 59,756 | 9,649 | 16,706 | 6.1932 | 3.5769 | |
| 2012 | 5,799,354 | 918,710 | 1,633,253 | 8.2 | 54,973 | 8,709 | 15,482 | 6.3125 | 3.5508 | |
| 2011 | 5,395,920 | 835,437 | 1,539,273 | 10.0 | 51,523 | 7,977 | 14,698 | 6.4588 | 3.5055 | |
| 2010 | 4,657,712 | 688,044 | 1,406,909 | 12.4 | 45,284 | 6,689 | 13,678 | 6.7695 | 3.3106 | |
| 2009 | 3,993,713 | 584,645 | 1,264,834 | 9.7 | 39,890 | 5,840 | 12,633 | 6.8310 | 3.1575 | |
| 2008 | 3,714,244 | 534,801 | 1,169,141 | 10.4 | 37,992 | 5,470 | 11,959 | 6.9451 | 3.1769 | |
| 2007 | 3,205,379 | 421,539 | 1,063,179 | 14.9 | 33,562 | 4,414 | 11,132 | 7.6040 | 3.0149 | |
| 2006 | 2,680,032 | 336,189 | 931,310 | 14.8 | 28,762 | 3,608 | 9,995 | 7.9718 | 2.8777 | |
| 2005 | 2,272,329 | 277,394 | 794,799 | 14.1 | 24,828 | 3,031 | 8,684 | 8.1917 | 2.8590 | |
| 2004 | 1,900,561 | 229,625 | 672,694 | 14.8 | 21,032 | 2,541 | 7,444 | 8.2768 | 2.8253 | |
| 2003 | 1,595,925 | 192,814 | 587,493 | 14.8 | 17,927 | 2,166 | 6,599 | 8.2770 | 2.7165 | |
| 2002 | 1,360,189 | 164,334 | 504,765 | 12.4 | 15,478 | 1,870 | 5,744 | 8.2770 | 2.6947 | |
| 2001 | 1,212,659 | 146,509 | 446,569 | 10.5 | 13,952 | 1,686 | 5,138 | 8.2770 | 2.7155 | |
| 2000 | 1,081,021 | 130,583 | 397,536 | 11.5 | 12,818 | 1,548 | 4,714 | 8.2784 | 2.7193 | |
| 1995 | 594,034 | 71,133 | 217,643 | 15.6 | 8,139 | 975 | 2,982 | 8.3510 | 2.7294 | |
| 1990 | 155,903 | 32,594 | 91,568 | 11.6 | 2,484 | 519 | 1,459 | 4.7832 | 1.7026 | |
| 1985 | 57,738 | 19,662 | 41,191 | 18.0 | 1,026 | 349 | 732 | 2.9366 | 1.4017 | |
| 1980 | 24,965 | 16,661 | 16,693 | 16.6 | 481 | 321 | 322 | 1.4984 | 1.4955 | |
| 1978 | 18,585 | 11,039 | - | 1.0 | 370 | 220 | - | 1.6836 | - |
After the communist revolution and until the start of the Deng Xiaoping reforms in 1978, Guangdong was an economic backwater, although a large underground, service-based economy has always existed. Economic development policies encouraged industrial development in the interior provinces which were weakly linked to Guangdong via transportation links. The government policy of economic autarky made Guangdong's access to the ocean irrelevant.
Deng Xiaoping's open door policy radically changed the economy of the province as it was able to take advantage of its access to the ocean, proximity to Hong Kong, and historical links to overseas Chinese. Guangdong was one of the first provinces to be authorized by the central government to receive foreign investment.[12] In addition, until the 1990s when the Chinese taxation system was reformed, the province benefited from the relatively low rate of taxation placed on it by the central government due to its post-Liberation status of being economically backward.
Although Shanghai is often cited as evidence of China's success, Guangdong's economic boom demonstrates that China has become a labor-intensive manufacturing economy. Guangdong's economic boom began with the early 1990s and has since spread to neighboring provinces, and also pulled their populations inward. Guangdong is China's largest exporter, as well as its largest importer of goods.[13] Its extensive manufacturing base is largely privately owned, making it less reliant on fixed asset investments than other provinces in China.[13]
The province is now one of the richest in the nation, with the highest GDP among all the provinces, although wage growth has only recently begun to rise due to a large influx of migrant workers from neighboring provinces. In 2021, Guangdong's per capita GDP was 98,700 RMB ($15,570 in nominal and $ 23,598 in PPP).
Guangdong contributes approximately 9% of the total national economic output. Now, it has three of the six Special Economic Zones: Shenzhen, Shantou and Zhuhai. The affluence of Guangdong, however, remains very much concentrated in a handful of cities near the Pearl River Delta.[13]