That's DONGGUAN!

The urban center of Dongguan is 50 km away from that of Guangzhou to its north, 90 km away from Shenzhen to its south, 47 sea miles away from Hong Kong and 48 sea miles from Macao by waterway. Dongguan is a must-pass-by locality from Guangzhou to Hong Kong by road or waterway.

Demographics

Dongguan has around 7 million inhabitants, although many are not official city residents. Many of the manufacturing facilities of the Dongguan area attract workers from far away towns and provinces, but these workers often cannot obtain official city residency. Such workers typically live in company supplied apartment buildings and visit their hometowns once or twice a year

Dongguan is also a known hometown for many overseas Chinese, the root for over 700,000 people in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macao and over 200,000 nationals living abroad.

Travel and Transport

Many foreign travelers to Dongguan fly into Hong Kong, which allows visa-free entry to holders of US and most European passports. After landing, visitors may apply for a visa to enter the rest of China.

One can travel from Hong Kong to Dongguan by bus, ferry, or train. Passengers traveling overland must disembark from their transport at the Hong Kong/China border to go through customs and immigration.

Depending on the time of day, using the ferry may be the most convenient way to travel from Hong Kong, as it allows one to avoid long queues at the land border checkpoint between Hong Kong and mainland China.

Rail services in and out of the city call at Dongguan railway station where there are direct train services to Guangzhou East railway station in Guangzhou; and Hung Hom KCR station< in Hong Kong.

The Humen Pearl River Bridge is a suspension bridge over the Pearl River. Completed in 1997, it has a main span of 888m.

Foreign Direct Investment

City administration is considered especially progressive in seeking foreign direct investment. In 2005, the city hosted the first-ever Sino-American Forum of Intellectual Property Rights, co-organized by the Patent Protection Association of China - PPAC> and the International Association for Technology Trade - IATT® as well as what has been identified as the world's largest educational technology conference and expo, co-organized by IATT and the International Society for Technology in Education - ISTE, attracting nearly 40,000 attendees in its first year.

The Dongguan Science & Technology Museum (opened in December 2005), the high tech commerce park in the SongShan Lake district (which debuted in 2003) and a partnership with the Global IT Academy of the Brea Olinda Unified School District in Southern California have demonstrated the city's emphasis on attracting technology business. The city also announced in 2005 a planned investment of US$500-Million over five years for technology infrastructure improvements.

While the city is the third largest exporting region in China, behind Shanghai and Shenzhen (and a major center for Taiwanese investment), outside of China, Dongguan has yet to gain the kind of name recognition realized by Shenzhen (just an hour away, and down-river from Dongguan). This may be because the city has placed an emphasis on investing in infrastructure, rather than directly targeting major corporations with financial incentives for economic development. Still, Dongguan has been identified by high level representatives of the National Development and Reform Commission - NDRC of the central government as being one of the most significant growth regions for technology in the coming years