A sales promotional activity was held in Dongmen Pedestrian Street in Luohu from Sept. 10-13. The activity was part of a larger event organized for the “consumption promotional month” project deployed by the Ministry of Commerce nationwide.

Over 100 foreign trade enterprises showcased products they produce for overseas markets in the activity.

The Luohu district government has always attached significance to the important role of consumption in boosting growth.

Luohu was the first district set up in Shenzhen 40 years ago and is the cradle of Shenzhen’s commerce and trade. Since 2010, the district has started exploring the possibility of constructing a core international consumption zone, according to the deployment of the Shenzhen government.

Now, as Shenzhen commemorates its 40th anniversary as a special economic zone, the construction of the core international consumption zone in Luohu has also entered its crucial phase.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has affected our sales to some extent. And to boost sales in brick-and-mortar shops, we are offering some discounts,” Lin Zehong, a Huawei customer manager, said at a Huawei outlet in Dongmen.

He said that hundreds of thousands of people visit Dongmen Pedestrian Street daily, and we have five shops along the street, which makes Luohu a highlight among all districts in Shenzhen in the company’s sales system in terms of sales volume.

“Dongmen Pedestrian Street is the most famous of its kind in Shenzhen. It is a landmark. It sets the stage for companies to showcase their new products here,” said a sales assistant of Dji, a drone manufacturer.

Luohu is upgrading the street to better reflect Shenzhen’s commerce culture and development history.

According to Zhou Jianjun, chief of Luohu’s commerce bureau, Dongmen Street will be built into a high-quality pedestrian street at the national level with international influence, a model of emerging consumption-related industries featuring an integration of culture, tourism, history, and business, and a new platform for Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao tourism and cultural cooperation.

“After the upgrading project is finished, the world will see a new Dongmen Street. It will be a carrier of the city’s historical and cultural memory, as well as a world-class international tourism and consumption cooperation zone,” Zhou said.

“We are building a Shenzhen Shuibei live streaming base in Luohu to boost jewelry sales on the internet,” said Geng Yang, the base’s general manager.

Phase one of the project covers a construction area of more than 2,000 square meters, and it currently has more than 600 stalls.

Shenzhen is the jewelry sales center of China, and Luohu is the jewelry sales center of Shenzhen. Luohu’s annual sales of gold and jewelry, mainly in the Shuibei Jewelry and Gold Wholesale Market, account for about 50% of the national total.

The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted the jewelry businesses to divert to e-commerce, and jewelry appraisal departments play an important role in guaranteeing the quality of the goods.

Notably, Luohu has tried its best to squeeze out more land in its urban upgrading and shantytown renovation projects to form six major business zones, along with a port economic belt with its three ports to Hong Kong.

With more than 200 chain-store companies, Luohu actively promotes the application of advanced technologies in consumption, as well as the merging of tourism, ecological preservation, history, and consumption.

Statistics show that the added value of Luohu’s commerce hit 45.18 billion yuan ($6.62 billion), accounting for 18.9% of its gross domestic product, and the retail sales of consumer goods was 128.92 billion yuan, which means it contributes to 14% of the city’s consumption with 9% of its population, according to Zhou.

The spillover, influence and radiation effects of Luohu’s consumption are self-evident, he said.

In July, Shenzhen issued a draft of its commerce development plan for the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) period to seek public opinions, in which Luohu had been mentioned many times, indicating that the district will further expedite its construction of the core international consumption zone in the foreseeable future.