AsiaNet 80504

DONGGUAN, China, Sept. 12, 2019 /Xinhua-AsiaNet/--

In the evening of 11th September, 2019 (Beijing Time), the Dongguan Basketball Center witnessed the long-expected quarterfinals of the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup, with Team France beating its USA counterpart by 10 points. "Many domestic and overseas journalists are drawn to the quarterfinals for live report, helping the world know more about Dongguan," said the head of the Media Department of the Dongguan Local Organizing Committee of the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup after the match.

Visited by most basketball players for the first time, though, Dongguan has already made connections with them through "Dongguan Manufacturing". Famous for manufacturing, Dongguan boasts a modern manufacturing industry system including such core fields as electronic information products, electrical machinery and equipment, textile, clothing, shoes and hats, paper-making and paper products, stationery and sporting goods, and furniture. The manufactured products like clothing, hats, furniture and cellphones are sold globally. Dongguan foreign trade report on August of 2019 reflects its total import and export volume has gone up by 6.8% to around USD 88.906 billion.

What remains common to manufacturing and basketball, which reveal Dongguan's two different aspects, is the underlying culture and spirits of the city.

"Basketball requires teamwork spirit," said Zhang Zhong, a local businessman and basketball fan. "Similar to that, Dongguan manufacturing results from international industrial-capacity cooperation and benefits from the globalization of industrial chains. It has become a world-renowned manufacturing city with foreign investment attraction, local production and global export," he added.

Statistics show that in 2018, Dongguan introduced about USD 2.1 billion contractual foreign investment, growing by 14.4% year-on-year. The number of newly contracted foreign direct investment projects increased to 1400. Among all the foreign investment projects, there were 102 foreign investment projects with over USD 10 million for each, growing by 7.4% year-on-year.

Along with its stable development of foreign trade, basketball teams from Dongguan have also obtained remarkable achievements. In 2019, the Guangdong Hongyuan Men's Basketball Team won the CBA Championship for the ninth time, outnumbering any other teams in CBA history. The Xintongsheng Women's Basketball Team won the WCBA Championship for the first time in the same year.

"Dongguan Basketball Center, as the venue for CBA, has, undoubtedly, high-quality equipment. The teamwork spirit, nice decorations and considerate services help create a player-friendly experience," Andreas Zagklis, the secretary general of FIBA said. "We will bring in more FIBA matches."

Top professional matches flourish in Dongguan, revealing the city's great atmosphere for basketball. It has 26,000 and 100 courts and gymnasiums for basketball, respectively, with at least one standard basketball court in each of the 500 villages and communities within its 32 towns and subdistricts.

"We hope to see NBA matches held in Dongguan and that Dongguan entrepreneurs cooperate with their American counterparts for more business opportunities," posted a local netizen on social media after the match.

Source: The Dongguan Local Organizing Committee of the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup 

--BERNAMA