Runners from around the world recently gathered in Dongguan, in Guangdong province, to compete in the 17th Asian Marathon Championships and the Dongguan International Marathon 2019 on Sunday.

The events attracted some 30,000 runners and 42 athletes from 16 countries and regions, the organizers said.

The run was held along major routes and covered Hongfu Road; Dongguan Avenue; the basketball center of Dongguan and Songshan Lake Hi-tech Zone.

Daichi Kamino, a Japanese participant who won the first prize of the Asian Marathon Championships, said that he loved the city, its food, its broad streets and its energetic atmosphere.

As a city of sports, Dongguan's sports history dates back to the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) when the modern sports was introduced into it.

Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, Dongguan has seen major development of sports industries. And it has won honors in many sports like weightlifting and swimming.

Since the 1970s, the city has played a big part in the sports field. Earlier this year, Dongguan hosted the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup and the 2019 Asian Open Figure Skating Trophy; the city was also host of the Sudirman Cup world mixed team championships in 2015. And its international sports events have not only injected vitality into the city but also allowed it to progress on the socio-economic front.

Dongguan has also seen rapid industrialization, urbanization and modernization. Its Songshan Lake Hi-Tech Industrial Development Zone was chosen by academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences a decade ago as home to the country's largest single large scientific facility for the spallation neutron source among many other locations, turning itself into an increasingly important innovation hub in the Guangzhou-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

With these facilities, Dongguan has moved into more innovative projects including a neutron science city, which is under construction and spans an area of 53.3 square kilometers.

And it is part of the city's efforts to develop itself into a comprehensive national science center and thus to support the Bay Area.

Speaking about Dongguan, Liang Weidong, Party secretary of Dongguan, said: "In recent years, Dongguan has focused on upgrading its innovation-driven development and has developed an economic system and development pattern based on innovation."

Meanwhile, official data showed that in 2018, research and development investment in Dongguan accounted for 2.55 percent of the regional GDP, reaching the level of moderately developed countries, and as far as PCT international patent applications were concerned, Dongguan ranked second in Guangdong province.

"After years of effort, we are now moving the manufacturing sector to the middle and high end of the global value chain.

"And we must continue to strive for breakthroughs in strengthening our scientific and technological innovation," Liang said.

As of 2018, the city had a total of 5,790 high-tech companies and 32 R&D institutions.

And in the next three to five years, the city plans to build two industrial clusters of artificial intelligence and health to create output worth at least 100 billion yuan ($14.26 billion). Dongguan's geographical location and its proximity to the Bay Area cities of Guangzhou and Shenzhen give it an edge as this offers it scope to benefit from innovation there, said Zhang Jingan, executive vice-president of the China Science Center of International Eurasian Academy of Sciences.

For 2018, the total volume of Dongguan's foreign trade surpassed 1.3 trillion yuan.

And by the end of 2018, more than 470 companies from Dongguan had invested in overseas markets, with the total investment surpassing $1.3 billion, official data showed.

Last year, Dongguan planned to invest more than 3 billion yuan in the next three years to establish the city as a hub for attracting technical talent.

In addition to the economic and industrial development, the city's progress can be also seen in its to bid improve its social welfare sector.

The city has pooled human resources of 1.95 million professionals including 126,000 high-profile ones. And Dongguan ranked sixth among the most popular cities in China for graduates in 2019.

"To make a breakthrough in high-quality development, Dongguan must drive socio-economic transformation with its city upgrades," Liang said.

"It must strengthen the city's landscaping and management and imprint it in people's hearts," he added.

 

 

 

The 17th Asian Marathon Championships and the Dongguan International Marathon 2019 attract some 30,000 runners and 42 athletes from 16 countries and regions. CHINA DAILY

 

 

The 17th Asian Marathon Championships and the Dongguan International Marathon 2019 attract some 30,000 runners and 42 athletes from 16 countries and regions. CHINA DAILY

 

 

The 17th Asian Marathon Championships and the Dongguan International Marathon 2019 attract some 30,000 runners and 42 athletes from 16 countries and regions. CHINA DAILY