On January 7, Zhongshan celebrated its 30th anniversary of upgrading to prefecture-level city. With the "dividends" of the reform and opening-up policy, Zhongshan, which covers only 1% of the land area and 3% of the population of Guangdong, leads the province with its economic aggregate.

Since the reform and opening-up, Zhongshan became one of the “Four Tigers” in Guangdong with its pioneering and enterprising spirits. Last year, Zhongshan’s GDP exceeded 32 billion yuan, which was about 84.9 times the number in 1988, increasing averagely 15.1% per year.

As a prefecture-level city without municipal districts, Zhongshan has developed economy of specialized towns, including “Guzhen lighting”, “Xiaolan hardware”, “Dongfeng appliances”, “Dachong rosewood”, “Gangkou G&A devices”, and etc. These towns produced over 50% products of the domestic market in their own industries. So far, Zhongshan has 37 national industrial bases, 18 provincial specialized towns and 516 famous brands.

In recent years, Zhongshan’s livelihood expenditure accounts for about 70% of the total public expenditure. Basic endowment insurance and basic medical insurance (hospitalization and outpatient service) basically cover the whole population in Zhongshan. At the same time, Zhongshan has been focusing on breaking the "urban-rural binary structure". In the first three quarters of 2017, Zhongshan has narrowed the income gap between urban and rural residents to 1.42:1, which was the smallest in Guangdong.

Currently, Zhongshan ushers in a new development pattern. The Shenzhen-Zhongshan Channel, which connects the east and the west banks of Pearl River directly, is now under construction. In order to integrate into the “Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Bay Area”, in the next few years Zhongshan will invest 140bn yuan on transportation infrastructure and develop into the passenger and freight transfer center connecting the east and the west banks of Pearl River.