Guangdong closed 2025 with a familiar but still consequential boast: a provincial GDP of RMB 14.58 trillion, up 3.9% year‑on‑year, marking 37 consecutive years at the top of China’s regional economic rankings. The province’s advantage is not limited to headline output. Guangdong led the nation in foreign trade, industrial production, fiscal revenue and births last year, underlining its continued centrality to China’s export‑oriented manufacturing model.
The province’s trade numbers are striking in scale and composition. Guangdong’s goods imports and exports totaled RMB 9.49 trillion in 2025 and contributed 24.1% of the country’s incremental trade growth. High‑technology goods are now a major driver: exports of such products topped RMB 1.14 trillion for the first time, while production of drones and industrial robots expanded rapidly — Guangdong accounts for roughly nine out of ten of the country’s drones and about 40% of its industrial robots.
Those figures are not merely about quantity. They reflect a shift up the value chain. More than half of Guangdong’s large‑scale industrial enterprises now fall within advanced manufacturing, and clusters such as Foshan have built near‑complete supply chains for robotics from components to system integration. The clustering has supported the emergence of thousands of specialist firms and helped Guangdong move from mass manufacturing towards higher‑margin, knowledge‑intensive production.
Guangdong’s innovation credentials are reinforced by sustained R&D spending: social R&D investment has been the national leader for nine straight years, and the province expects overall R&D intensity to reach about 3.6% of GDP. The “Shenzhen–Hong Kong–Guangzhou” innovation cluster now ranks among the world’s most prominent, combining deep industrial capabilities with extensive links to international research networks and capital.
New policy adjustments and logistics upgrades have also turbocharged trade efficiency. A government reform allowing tax rebates at the point of departure and post‑sale settlement for cross‑border e‑commerce overseas warehouses slashed costs and accelerated turnover; overseas‑warehouse exports surged nearly tenfold. Improved regional corridors, such as rising throughput across the Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macao Bridge, have amplified these gains and show how physical and regulatory connectivity still matters for trade competitiveness.
Despite the positives, important constraints persist. Small and medium‑sized enterprises — the backbone of Guangdong’s supply chains — continue to struggle with digitalisation, lacking technical know‑how, talent and tolerated error margins to experiment. Policy precision and inter‑firm industrial coordination remain uneven, slowing the wider diffusion of advanced technologies. Fiscal growth is modest: general public budget revenue is near RMB 1.4 trillion and the 2026 target is for just around 3% growth.
Looking ahead, Guangdong has set a 2026 GDP target of 4.5%–5% and pledged to pursue higher actual outcomes. The provincial strategy marries two themes: openness and innovation. Authorities aim to cultivate new economic forms — headquarter economies, platform economies, the so‑called low‑altitude (airspace) economy, silver‑age services, and specialised port and building economies — to broaden growth drivers beyond traditional exports and manufacturing.
Particularly notable is the bet on a low‑altitude economy built around drones, urban air mobility and air tourism. Guangdong already sees this sector as worth hundreds of billions of yuan and is moving to free up airspace, build supporting regulation and certification frameworks, and commercialise applications such as parcel delivery and aerial sightseeing. The province frames the move as both a consumer play — unlocking novel leisure spending — and an industrial one that could cut logistics costs and relieve airport congestion.
For international observers, Guangdong’s trajectory matters because it remains a barometer for China’s wider industrial competitiveness and its ability to manage the transition from quantity to quality growth. If Guangdong sustains its technological upgrading and opens new channels for trade and services, it will keep influencing global supply chains. If it stumbles on SME upgrading, talent supply or precision policy, the risks will ripple through industries that rely on Guangdong’s factories, ports and innovation networks.