China's Greater Bay Area cities' GDP 2023

In 2023, the total gross domestic product (GDP) of the Guangdong - Hong Kong - Macao Greater Bay Area amounted to almost two trillion U.S. dollars. That year, the GDP of the city of Shenzhen alone amounted to around 489 billion U.S. dollars, ranking first among cities in the Greater Bay Area. 

The Greater Bay Area in China

The Guangdong - Hong Kong - Macao Greater Bay Area is an economic zone comprised of the two special administrative regions Hong Kong and Macao and nine cities of Guangdong province in mainland China, namely Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Zhuhai, Foshan, Zhongshan, Dongguan, Huizhou, Jiangmen, and Zhaoqing. The concept of the Greater Bay Area has been formulated by the Chinese government to further integrate Macao and Hong Kong into the Chinese mainland and to boost the economy of the cities in the Pearl River Delta. In the 1980s and 1990s, the Pearl River Delta had been one of the prime regions for economic development, but in recent years it has lost ground to the Yangtze River Delta in East China, the largest of the economic macro-regions in China. A development plan for the Greater Bay Area, which was initiated in 2017 and further elaborated thereafter, aims at developing the region into the world's largest and economically most successful Bay Area.

GDP development in the Greater Bay Area

In 2022, the GDP of the Greater Bay Area cities was still affected by the coronavirus pandemic and decreased slightly in U.S. dollar terms compared to the previous year. However, the development was uneven, with some of the cities on the mainland experiencing strong economic growth, while GDP growth in Hong Kong and Macau still suffered significantly from the pandemic. In 2023, per capita GDP in the Greater Bay Area ranged at about 22,867 U.S. dollars, which was one of the highest values in China. However, per capita GDP in Hong Kong and Macao is still considerably higher then in the neighboring cities on the mainland.