The development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area has provided young people in Hong Kong with a new runway for career, and they should make good use of the platform, Matthew Cheung, chief secretary for administration of China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government, said Sunday.

Hong Kong should capitalize on its advantages under the "One Country, Two Systems" during its integration into the national development, Cheung said in his blog.

Cheung said the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is one of the regions with the highest degree of openness and the strongest economic vitality in the country. With strong strength in population, economic scale and resources, it is a unique and diversified bay area.

It is only natural that Hong Kong youth should be helped to understand the country and integrate into its development, he said.

Over the past two years or so, the Youth Development Commission of the HKSAR government has continuously optimized and expanded various internship, entrepreneurship and exchange programs to provide Hong Kong youth with deeper, broader, and more diversified opportunities to experience mainland culture and have in-depth exchanges with local youth.

At present, an average of more than 60,000 Hong Kong youth and students participate in mainland exchange and internship programs organized, funded, or coordinated by various departments of the HKSAR government every year.

Cheung said he believed that young people who have grown up in Hong Kong, an international financial hub, are familiar with both Chinese and Western cultures, have a broad global vision, and will surely have certain competitive advantages in the Greater Bay Area.

He encouraged young people in Hong Kong to have a first-hand understanding of the country's development and opportunities, keep an open, inclusive, and healthy competitive attitude at all times, and strive to enhance their own strength, add value to themselves and enrich their experience, so as to make full use of the Greater Bay Area as a broad platform.

Hong Kong SAR has contributed greatly to the process of China's economic reform and opening-up.

With its important global strategic positions, the region has played its role in introducing external investment and talents in absorbing internationally-advanced technologies and managerial expertise during China's reform and opening-up process.

The Greater Bay Area project, encompassing the special administrative regions (SAR) of Hong Kong and Macao, as well as nine cities in southern China's Guangdong Province, is seen as a fresh practice to promote the "One Country, Two Systems" principle.

Hong Kong SAR, together with Macao SAR, Guangzhou, and Zhuhai, are named as four core cities in the Outline Development Plan, facilitating the regional development of the Greater Bay Area.

(With input from Xinhua)