Couriers shuttle back and forth, delivery drones transport goods in the air, and real-time market prices flash on electronic screens… On December 24, reporters learned that Shenzhen’s Huaqiangbei — the 930-meter-long “No.1 Electronics Street of China” — handled more than 3.67 million domestic and international parcels on the day, setting a new record.
“Huaqiangbei dispatches over 1 billion parcels annually, with a daily average of more than 3 million pieces. The parcel volume of this single street is equivalent to that of a provincial-level administrative region in mainland China,” said Du Hanhan, Deputy Director of the Huaqiangbei Sub-district Office. She added that these parcels are split 60-40 between the domestic and international markets, covering 183 countries and regions, with the total cargo value exceeding 100 billion RMB and import and export volume topping 40 billion RMB.
Where are these enormous volumes of parcels destined for? Data from over 210 logistics stations in Huaqiangbei shows that 60% of domestic parcels are sent to the Pearl River Delta, Yangtze River Delta, and Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei regions. In recent years, overseas parcels have formed a diversified layout covering North America, ASEAN, the Middle East, Europe and Latin America. “90-minute delivery within Shenzhen, two-day delivery across China, three-day delivery to neighboring countries, and seven-day delivery to major global cities” — the economic ripples emanating from Huaqiangbei spread across the globe, fully justifying its reputation as a bellwether of the global electronic information industry.
Goods circulate at a brisk pace, and visitors flock in an endless stream. Huaqiangbei sees a daily foot traffic of over 700,000 people, among whom more than 7,000 are foreign merchants. Abdallah, a businessman from Burundi, filled out a parcel waybill and sent the mobile phone accessories he just purchased to his home market. “These products are very popular back home. In the past two years, five of my friends have come here to do business with me,” he said joyfully. Looking at Huaqiangbei’s parcel orders, traditional mobile phones and their accessories account for half of the total shipments. With the boom in AI applications, drones, TWS earphones, AI glasses and other products have further become global hard currency.
Beneath the thriving market lies a robust industrial underpinning. Covering only 1.45 square kilometers, the Huaqiangbei business district is home to 115,000 market entities and 35 specialized markets, supplying more than 1 million types of electronic components. “This single street constitutes a complete industrial chain in itself”. Moreover, the Shenzhen-Guangzhou-Hong Kong innovation cluster — ranked first in the world — and the world-class electronic information industry cluster around the Pearl River Estuary have forged Huaqiangbei’s full-stack supply capacity featuring “core technologies + key components + integrated finished products + rapid iteration”. It has become a daily rhythm here for products to go from design in the morning, prototyping in the afternoon, mass production the next day, to export within a week.
Bolstered by a favorable entrepreneurial environment, Huaqiangbei has attracted more than 20,000 makers from across the globe. To support this, the sub-district has set up dedicated service stations for foreign makers and multilingual service windows. Henk, a Dutch maker, has rooted himself in Huaqiangbei for nearly five years, evolving from a backpacker to the founder of a well-known local studio. “The upcoming APEC meeting to be held in Shenzhen next year has become a hot topic among my friends and I,” he said. “I am deeply impressed by the notion that walking hand in hand with China means walking hand in hand with opportunities. Huaqiangbei is my opportunity, and an open, prosperous China will surely be an opportunity for the whole world.”
“These parcels from Huaqiangbei may be small in form, but they carry profound significance and speak volumes about bigger trends,” said Guo Wanda, Executive Vice President of the China Development Institute (Shenzhen). “Through these parcels, we can clearly see the vigorous vitality of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and the Chinese economy as a whole. The prosperity of Huaqiangbei is a vivid epitome of China’s commitment to integrating itself more actively into the global economy and practicing an open strategy of mutual benefit and win-win cooperation.”
