On Aug. 26, 1980, the Standing Committee of the Fifth National People's Congress, China's top legislature, approved the establishment of SEZ. 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 , which expanded at an annual rate of 20.7% to 2.7 trillion RMB (about 400 billion USD) in 2019, from just 270 million RMB in 1980.
