One of the reasons for Dongguan having enjoyed such a strong economic performance in 2019 (GDP +7%) is because China’s smartphone industry escaped the ire of US President Donald Trump. Or, more particularly, it is why Chang’an Town, home of Vivo and OPPO, had a good year. With smartphones managing to avoid tariffs in the US-China trade war, the town’s GDP broke the 70 billion mark thanks to surging industrial output that reached 266.73 billion yuan.
More importantly, however, 2019 will be remembered as the year these homegrown tech giants broke ground on large-scale new R&D centers in the town, pushing up fixed-asset investment by 42% to 7.44 billion yuan.