(People’s Daily) After meals were packed, weighed, and mounted to drones, these unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) took off under unified control, and arrived at office buildings across an overpass in just two minutes. They autonomously delivered the meals and returned.

The delivery drone fleet has become a spectacle in a commercial area in Longgang district, Shenzhen, south China’s Guangdong province.
“In this commercial area, the drones deliver over 300 orders every day. During the lunchtime, they take off and land almost every minute,” said Yan Yan, head of public affairs for drone operations at Meituan, a Chinese shopping platform for locally found consumer products and retail services.

According to Yan, Meituan has opened multiple drone routes in Shenzhen, delivering a total of over 200,000 orders to communities, office buildings, tourist attractions, hospitals, and universities. The platform has established a community drone-delivery model that is able to deliver orders to destinations within three kilometres in 15 minutes.

In fact, food delivery by drones is no longer a novelty in Shenzhen. From sightseeing to urban security, from medical assistance to emergency rescue, and from agricultural and forestry protection to power-line inspections, the low-altitude economy is finding more and more application scenarios in Shenzhen.

For instance, taking a helicopter ride operated by Heli-Eastern has become a convenient transportation option for citizens going from Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport to areas such as Guangming and Pingshan districts of Shenzhen; a “lifeline” for transporting blood products via drones from the Shenzhen Blood Centre to hospitals in Nanshan and Bao’an districts has been established; at the power transmission management office of Shenzhen Power Supply Bureau Co., Ltd., 5G-enabled drones have been employed regularly in high-voltage cable terminal inspection on transmission towers.

“Shenzhen has listed the low-altitude economy as one of the 20 key strategic emerging sectors for development. The city aims to drive the development of this new sector with technological innovation and by creating more application scenarios,” said Zhao Ke, an official of the Shenzhen Municipal Bureau of Transport.

According to Zhao, Shenzhen has opened 126 low-altitude air routes and established 89 unmanned aerial-vehicle takeoff and landing points. Last year, the city saw 600,000 flights of cargo drones and 20,000 flights of helicopters, Zhao said.

Yang Jincai, chairman of the Shenzhen UAV Industry Association, revealed that by 2023, Shenzhen reported low-altitude economy output of 96 billion yuan ($13.35 billion), and was home to over 1,700 companies engaged in the industry. The city has developed a complete industrial chain covering related R&D, design, manufacturing, operation and support.

Currently, Shenzhen holds a market share of over 70 per cent in the consumer drone sector globally, and more than 50 per cent in the industrial drone sector.
The rapid development of the low-altitude economy in Shenzhen is attributed to the city’s strategic efforts to seize development opportunities and continuously improve relevant policy systems.

In 2017, Shenzhen became a comprehensive demonstration zone for the general aviation industry. In 2019, measures were introduced to designate airspace for micro and light UAVs. On Feb. 1 of this year, regulations on the promotion of the low-altitude economy in the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone officially came into effect, normalising the development of the low-altitude economy in terms of infrastructure, flight services, industrial applications, technological innovation and safety management.

Zhao said that the first phase of a project on promoting infrastructure for intelligent, low-altitude integration in Shenzhen is currently accelerating its pace. The project aims to preliminarily establish an infrastructural network, air-connectivity network, flight-route network, and service network to support the low-altitude economy.

Besides, innovative platforms such as a smart air-traffic operation laboratory are also being constructed. In the future, Shenzhen will gradually carry out UAV operations and integrated flight verification, as well as develop regulations, standards, and norms for low-altitude flights.

China issues action plan to promote high-level opening up, attract foreign investment
(Xinhua) The General Office of the State Council has issued an action plan to steadily promote high-level opening up and make greater efforts to attract and utilise foreign investment.

The action plan emphasises that foreign investment is an important force in helping to achieve Chinese modernisation and promoting the common prosperity and development of the Chinese economy and the world economy.

To attract and utilise foreign investment more vigorously, we must fully, accurately and comprehensively implement the new development concept, and create a market-oriented, law-based and internationalised first-class business environment that will boost foreign investors’ confidence in their ability to develop in China, the action plan states.

The action plan proposes 24 measures across five aspects, including expanding market access, enhancing appeal to foreign investment, fostering a level playing field, facilitating the flow of innovation factors, as well as better aligning domestic rules with high-standard international economic and trade rules.

The country will shorten its negative list for foreign investment reasonably, and launch pilot programmes to relax foreign-entry thresholds in scientific and technological innovation, according to the document.

Efforts should also focus on expanding access of foreign financial institutions to the banking and insurance sectors, and expanding the business scope of foreign financial institutions participating in domestic bond market, said the plan.
The country also vows to expand the Catalogue of Encouraged Industries for Foreign Investment and the list of key foreign-funded projects, aiming to provide enhanced policy support for attracting foreign investment, states the plan.

Measures will be taken to support data flow between foreign-funded enterprises and their headquarters, facilitate international business personnel exchanges, and improve the management of work and residence permits for foreign nationals.

Expert: ‘Growth miracle’ possible
(China Daily) China should be able to sustain an economic growth rate of about five per cent in the coming years by achieving a relatively high growth in total factor productivity (TFP), as the country accelerates efforts to foster new, quality productive forces via technological innovation alongside reform and opening-up, said a renowned economist.

Liu Qiao, dean of Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management, said in an exclusive interview with China Daily that “China is an undeniable candidate to make a growth miracle,” in contrast to some speculation that the country’s economic development has peaked.

Liu said that such speculation stems from a pessimistic estimate of China’s TFP growth. The TFP is a measure of productive efficiency, measuring how much output can be produced from a certain amount of aggregate inputs.

Historically, Liu said, it has been difficult for an economy to maintain a high TFP growth after it completes industrialisation. Even the United States, which boasts the world’s largest investments in basic research, had a TFP growth of below one per cent over the past 40 years, which led to its long-term economic growth rate being only around 1.5 to 2 per cent.

However, there are fundamental differences between China and US economic growth models, Liu added, meaning that China — unlike the US — still has a huge industrial system and enjoys vast investment opportunities brought about by re-industrialisation, digital transformation and energy transition.

Official data show that China’s manufacturing output accounts for around 27 per cent of its GDP, whereas in the US it stands at about 11 per cent.
Also, Liu said China’s per capita GDP is around $12,000, which means there is huge development space left.

Therefore, Liu said China should be able to maintain an economic growth rate of around five per cent in the coming years if it can bring its annual TFP growth from the current level of about 1.8 per cent to a level of above two per cent by boosting technological innovation, deepening reform and opening up and developing new quality productive forces.

“This will help the country realise basic socialist modernisation by 2035.”
In an earlier interview with China Daily, Steven Barnett, senior resident representative of the International Monetary Fund in China, also recommended that China should carry out more reforms to give the market a more decisive role in order to lift long-term growth prospects.

Looking at this year, Liu expressed confidence that China will hit its annual economic growth target of about five per cent, anticipating that China’s first-quarter growth rate may come in at around 4.5 per cent.

The National Bureau of Statistics said on Monday that China’s economic recovery gained further momentum in the first two months of 2024 as industrial output, fixed-asset investment and export growth accelerated, though retail sales slowed.

While external demand improved with the better-than-expected foreign trade performance in the first two months, Liu highlighted the need to bolster domestic demand and boost investment confidence among private enterprises.

He emphasised the country’s plan to issue 1 trillion yuan ($139 billion) in ultra-long-term special government bonds this year as a key fiscal move to bolster the economy, saying it is advisable to issue more such bonds this year and use proceeds raised in areas such as fundamental research and subsidies to low-income groups.

Liu also cautioned that China still faces a big problem with real estate that will take time to resolve, necessitating the monitoring of key indicators.

If such indicators as new housing starts, property sales and housing prices do not substantially improve year-on-year in the first half, more resolute support through macroeconomic and industrial policies, including those to facilitate debt restructuring, would be warranted.

NBS data showed that China’s January-February property development investment dropped nine per cent year-on-year, compared with a 9.6 per cent drop in 2023.