At the beginning of 2024, the concept of the low-altitude economy was first mentioned in the government work report, becoming one of the new engines for future industrial growth.

The size of China's low-altitude economy by 2023 is estimated at more than 500 billion RMB, with its scale expected to rise to 2 trillion RMB by 2030, according to the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC).

In May, the "Guangdong Province Action Plan for Promoting High-Quality Development of the Low-altitude Economy (2024-2026)" was issued, aiming to establish a world-leading land for the low-altitude economy industry by 2026.

The plan targets a low-altitude economy scale exceeding 300 billion RMB, forming a comprehensive development landscape in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Zhuhai, with three core cities interconnected to develop the province's low-altitude economy to a bigger scale.

In 2023, Shenzhen has led drone manufacturing with an annual output of 96 billion RMB. The city ranks first in China in terms of flight scale, with China's first local legislation on the low-altitude economy and world's first cross-sea and cross-city eVTOL route completed its first flight here.

With many local manufacturing companies, Guangzhou covers the entire drone industry chain, with China's first low-altitude economic application demonstration island and world's first domestically developed unmanned aerial passenger aircraft certified for airworthiness

Zhuhai opened China's first fixed low-altitude sightseeing route to islands, which also has permanent sites of the China International Aviation & Aerospace Exhibition. The city has set up Zhuhai Low-altitude Economy Industry Alliance to speed up construction of the Low-altitude Economic Industrial Park.

(cnbayarea.org.cn & GDToday)