Shenzhen's journey from exports to expertise

Over the past year Chinese companies expanding overseas have drawn global attention with everything from Labubu collectibles to electric vehicles and even coffee brands. Yet beneath these eye-catching exports lies a more profound and consequential trend: the quiet emergence of truly global businesses that integrate technology, supply chains, and industrial capabilities with local investment.

China's outbound direct investment reached $174.38 billion in 2025, up 7.1 percent year-on-year, according to China's Ministry of Commerce. Analysts point out that a significant share of these flows is directed toward the Asia-Pacific region, where manufacturing-heavy greenfield investment and capacity development projects are expanding rapidly, particularly across ASEAN economies.

At the heart of this outward momentum is Shenzhen, long a symbol of China's reform and opening-up era, and today the country's powerhouse of foreign trade, innovation and advanced manufacturing. As China's top-performing city for foreign trade, Shenzhen is exporting not just products, but entire industrial ecosystems. Its giant corporations such as Huawei, Tencent and BYD are building strong operations across the ASEAN region.

Take BYD for example. The global leader in EVs has established a manufacturing base in Rayong in Thailand and another EV facility in Subang in Indonesia.

BYD isn't just selling cars in these markets, it is transplanting the industrial model of Shenzhen — battery technology, supply chain coordination and local employment — in a local market while building a regional manufacturing node.

To be sure, this is not a recent development. This transfer of Shenzhen's industrial knowledge and technological innovation has been going on for a long time.

When a BYD battery pack crosses the border, it carries decades of electrochemical research, a finely tuned manufacturing ecosystem built over generations, and, increasingly, a local partnership structure that transfers real industrial knowledge to the destination economy.

DJI tells a different version of the same story. The Shenzhen-based drone maker holds an estimated 70 percent of the global market for consumer drones. Its agricultural drones are widely used across Southeast Asia to automate planting and protect crops. In markets such as Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia, the company has trained thousands of local operators and developed a dense network of dealers and service providers.

DJI did not just build a market presence, but created an embedded local ecosystem of drone pilots, distributors and service firms.

In this sense, Shenzhen's "exports" today are fundamentally different from what "Made in China" meant 20 years ago.

Today, leading Shenzhen enterprises are not just shipping products abroad; they are exporting their operational expertise and innovation frameworks to build global industrial ecosystems.

It is therefore fitting that the APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting in November will be hosted in Shenzhen. This marks the third time China has hosted APEC, after Shanghai in 2001 and Beijing in 2014. But while those editions signaled financial and political capital, Shenzhen has been chosen for its industrial capabilities and openness to global trade.

China's theme for the APEC meet, "Building an Asia-Pacific Community to Prosper Together", paired with its priorities of openness, innovation and cooperation, closely reflects Shenzhen's own development trajectory. This city has grown by keeping its doors open and promoting greater global engagement and trade.

The APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting is a genuine opportunity for Asia-Pacific economies to engage seriously with Chinese partners in new energy, AI infrastructure and advanced manufacturing.

They stand to gain not just products but production know-how, investment, and supply chain integration, building on a trend that is already underway: from Vietnam's electronics clusters anchored by Chinese supply chain investment to EV manufacturing hubs across the region.

Forty-five years ago, Shenzhen was mostly rural farmland. Today it is home to some of the world's most innovative technology companies and has become a powerful argument for what open, collaborative globalization can achieve. As APEC leaders gather there in November, they won't need a presentation to understand the Shenzhen model: outside the conference halls they will have living proof of what the next wave of international collaboration — Globalization 2.0 — looks like.

The author is the founder and CEO of iMpact, a communications and business consulting group.

The views don't necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

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