The latest statistics show that the city of Dongguan, dubbed the "factory of the world," in south China's Guangdong Province, reported a GDP of over 1 trillion yuan (157.7 billion U.S. dollars) in 2021, up 8.2 percent year on year.

This marks that Dongguan becomes the 24th Chinese city whose GDP has surpassed 1 trillion yuan so far. Dongguan's crossing the GDP threshold of 1 trillion yuan further demonstrates the strong resilience of China's economy.

As the vane of Chinese foreign trade, the city's foreign trade has been gravely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic over the past two years. The previous lack of orders and the later lack of workers as well as a shortage of containers had all affected the normal foreign trade of the city.

However, in January 2021, the growth rate of Dongguan's foreign trade stopped falling and started to pick up. The total import and export volume of the year reached 1.52 trillion yuan, up 14.6 percent year on year.

Dongguan Ramaxel Technology Company, a DRAM module manufacturer, temporarily transformed its meeting rooms into staff dormitories during the hardest time of the COVID-19 outbreak last year, for the sake of a due production schedule and epidemic prevention and control needs. In 2020, the output value of the company was less than 2 billion yuan, but the figure notched up more than 10 billion yuan merely a year later.

In 2021, the industrial added value of major enterprises in Dongguan reached about 500.9 billion yuan, up 10.2 percent year on year, and its industrial investment increased by 25.3 percent year on year, showing entrepreneurs' confidence in the future.

Overseas investment also continues to favor the city. In the first three quarters of 2021, there were 76 projects with investments of over 10 million U.S. dollars in Dongguan, involving foreign investment of nearly 3.75 billion U.S. dollars, up 111.5 percent year on year.

Such a rapid bounce back in its economic performances can be partly owing to the local government's timely and precise assistance and coordination work.

Acting according to the circumstances of every local company, the local economic operation monitoring and dispatching headquarters rolled out a series of favorable policies and effective measures to bail out the companies trapped in the epidemic.

Another welcome change in the "world factory" is its upgraded industry distribution. Previously, it heavily relied on low-margin processing trade and labor-intensive industries.

Born in Dongguan, Yue Yuen Industrial (Holdings) Limited is among the world's largest original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) of sports shoes and casual shoes for world-renowned brands. At its peak, the company boasted about 150,000 employees. Due to the rising labor costs over the years, the factory eventually moved to Vietnam.