(Yicai Global) Jan. 7 -- The gross domestic product of Dongguan, also known as the ‘world’s factory’ as it is home to one of the globe’s largest manufacturing bases, will top CNY1 trillion (USD157 billion) in 2021, an official at the city’s Communist Party of China’s committee said.

The GDP of Dongguan in southern China’s Guangdong will become the country’s 24th and the province’s fourth to have exceeded the threshold of CNY1 trillion last year, Xiao Yafei, secretary of the CPC Dongguan Committee, said at the local CPC congress held on Jan. 5.

Dongguan achieved a GDP of CNY769.5 billion (USD120.7 billion) in the first three quarters of last year, up 9.1 percent from the same period in 2020, according to official data. The figure stood at CNY965 billion in 2020.

The city has gradually developed into one of the world’s largest manufacturing bases due to the improved export trade after the reform and opening up. It has formed modern industrial systems in the electronic information, electrical machinery, textiles and garments, furniture, toys, paper and paper products, food and beverage, and chemical industries.

The global financial crisis in 2008 greatly affected Dongguan but the city quickly shifted its economic development method and successfully achieved industrial transformation and upgrading. It stabilized its economic growth and formed a relatively complete manufacturing system with 34 industries and over 60,000 products.

Dongguan’s permanent residents jumped 27.3 percent to exceed 10 million in 2020 from the last census 10 years earlier, becoming the third city in the province to reach such target after first-tier cities Guangzhou and Shenzhen, according to the 2020 National Population Census.

In recent years, Dongguan has taken over a large number of high-tech industries including electronic information from Shenzhen, which also led to a continuous increase in its population, Peng Peng, executive president of the Guangdong Institutional Reform Research Association, told Yicai Global.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Futura Costaglione