Editor’s Note
Two towns in Shanwei, Guangdong—Ketang and Meilong—have been recognized as provincial “Shopping Towns” for 2025, highlighting their unique local industries and commercial appeal. This selection underscores efforts to boost regional economic vitality through distinctive town-level development.
On December 12, the Department of Commerce of Guangdong Province released the 2025 Guangdong Province “Shopping Towns” list, with a total of 34 towns (streets) selected across the province. Shanwei City’s Ketang Town and Meilong Town in Haifeng County successfully made the list due to their distinctive industrial advantages.
It is understood that among the 34 towns (streets) selected for the provincial “Shopping Towns” list, there are 12 industrial towns, 6 agricultural towns, and 16 commercial towns. The focus is primarily on characteristic consumer goods industry clusters such as electronic products, trendy toys, clothing and apparel, leather goods and luggage, ceramics and sanitary ware, jewelry, lighting fixtures and cutlery, and food.
All selected towns (streets) possess high recognition and a solid industrial foundation in their respective fields, highlighting the deep integration of specialized town industrial advantages with consumer appeal. Recently, the 2025 China·Shanwei Colored Gemstone Industry Development Conference and the First Shanwei International Jewelry Exhibition grandly opened in Shanwei. Notably, two of its sub-venues were located precisely at the Ketang Jewelry Trading Market and the Meilong International Trade City Gold and Silver Jewelry Exhibition Hall.
Shanwei’s colored gemstone industry has deep roots. After over 40 years of dedicated development, it has formed two major characteristic industrial clusters centered on crystal/colored gemstones and gold/silver jewelry, establishing a complete industrial chain from “raw material procurement – refined processing – global trade circulation.”
Ketang Town, known as the “Colored Gemstone Capital of China,” possesses the world’s most complete colored gemstone industrial chain. It aggregates over 70% of the global crystal processing share, earning the reputation of “World’s Colored Gemstones, Made in Ketang.”
Meilong Town, on the other hand, excels in the jewelry industry. Its products are exported to over 180 countries and regions, including Europe, America, and Southeast Asia, demonstrating strong market competitiveness and showcasing the style of the “Jewelry Capital of China.”
The selection of these two Shanwei towns for the “Shopping Towns” list further highlights the achievements of Shanwei in recent years in vigorously developing characteristic industries, guided by the overarching “Hundreds, Thousands, Tens of Thousands Project.” Shanwei closely follows the development concept of “promoting tourism through shopping and driving shopping through tourism,” further connecting industrial consumption with cultural and tourism experiences. This allows characteristic products to become important carriers for cultural and tourism consumption and enables tourism traffic to empower characteristic industries. Moving forward, Shanwei will focus on building more convenient and efficient consumption scenarios and market channels to continuously promote the quality improvement and upgrading of characteristic consumption.