Guangzhou

Guangzhou (also known as Canton) is the third-largest Chinese city behind Beijing and Shanghai and is the capital of the Guangdong Province. It is the main manufacturing hub of the Pearl River Delta and produces about a third of all of China’s exports. As labour costs have increased in Hong Kong, manufacturers opened new plants in Guangzhou and the surrounding areas. Combined with Chinese tax reforms in the 1990s that made it beneficial for major companies to set up business here, it has seen they city rapidly grow over the last 25 years or so.