China has marked the 40th anniversary of the establishment of the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in southern Guangdong Province. On Aug. 26, 1980, the Standing Committee of the fifth National People's Congress, the top legislature, approved the establishment of SEZs of Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Shantou in Guangdong Province and Xiamen in Fujian Province. Since then, Shenzhen has transformed from a small backward border town into an international metropolis with global influence and a permanent population of over 13 million. After four decades of rapid growth, Shenzhen now ranks fifth among Asian cities in terms of gross domestic product (GDP), which expanded at an annual rate of 20.7 percent to 2.7 trillion yuan (about 400.1 billion U.S. dollars) in 2019 from 270 million yuan in 1980.
