Shenzhen allowed to turn entire city into special zone

Shenzhen will expand its special economic zone to cover the entire city, which should solve problems caused by 'one city, two systems'.

'I have good news here that the approval documents [of Shenzhen's proposal] by the central government now are ready in print house,' Wang Rong, Communist Party secretary of the city, said on Sunday at a meeting of the city's people's political consultative conference.

Shenzhen has eight districts. Four of them - Luohu, Futian, Nanshan and Yantian - are in the SEZ, but Baoan and Longgang, which make up four-fifths of the city's land mass but are suburban, are not. In 2007 two new districts were established - Guangming and Pingshan - which had been part of Baoan and Longgang before.

The expansion - which would merge the eight districts and see the zone increase from 395 sq km to 1,948 sq km, or nearly twice the size of Hong Kong - is a key plank in the city's restructuring plan. Shenzhen contends its development has long been held back as only a part of it is within the SEZ, and it has had to operate under different legislative systems for 17 years.

'First, Shenzhen will have more power and space for trial reform after the expansion,' said Zhang Hongqiao , a member of Shenzhen's CPPCC. 'As the special economic zone, Shenzhen has been given a specific legislative right to launch some pilot regulations different from other parts of the country. Before, we could use that only within the four districts. Now we can introduce them to all eight.

'Second, it would be good for the development of integration between Shenzhen and Hong Kong since the scope of the twin cities would be several times what it was before.

'Third, Baoan and Longgang districts had been slighted in investment, public facilities and good public security because they were without the crown of the SEZ. In the future, the imbalance can be made up step by step.'