The Development Zone was established in June 1992 and upgraded to a provincial economic development zone with the approval of  Provincial People's Government. Since the establishment of the zone, people in the development zone have made all-round progress in port development, investment attraction, economic construction and various social undertakings under the guidance of the concept of "Hong Kong is the city and the city prospers with Hong Kong".

In 2005, Chenyu Office focused on the two themes of "year of promoting key projects" and "year of paying close attention to implementation", and strived to make the office's economic construction and social undertakings reach a new level. The total industrial and agricultural output value of the whole region was 6.3/kloc-0.20 billion yuan, an increase of 28.3% over the previous year, of which the industrial output value was 6.09 billion yuan and export delivery value/kloc-0.87 billion yuan. The revenue from "two taxes" was 2,965.438 billion yuan, an increase of 35.34%, of which the revenue from local taxes was 90.857 million yuan. The economic strength has been significantly enhanced, the industrial economic structure has been continuously optimized, and the operation quality has been significantly improved. In recent years, the Development Zone has been listed as a national pilot town for comprehensive reform of small towns, a national "All-Excellent" town for civil affairs, a provincial-level scientific and technological spark demonstration town, a provincial-level "Pearl of East China Sea Culture" town, a provincial-level health town and a municipal-level education star town.