Biz Analysis
16:10, 03-Jun-2019
Greater Bay Area Plus Taiwan: 1+1>2
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About 300 participants collaborated on ideas for innovation and development in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) Plus Taiwan in Guangzhou on Monday.
Among the participants were leaders from the Taiwan Affairs Office, Cross-Strait CEO Summit and Guangdong Province, representatives of Taiwan's industrial and commercial organizations and Taiwan-funded enterprises, and young Taiwanese representatives.
The convention heard that since the development plan for GBA and the policy for further deepening economic, social and cultural exchanges and cooperation between Guangzhou and Taiwan came out, more than 28,000 enterprises with Taiwanese investment in Guangdong have reached a total contract value of over 85 billion U.S. dollars. More than 200,000 Taiwanese businessmen have permanent residence in Guangzhou.
City view of Guangzhou. /VCG Photo
City view of Guangzhou. /VCG Photo
The Pearl River Delta in GBA was the earliest and most popular place for Taiwanese businessmen to invest in the Chinese mainland in the 1980s. They are still the most important cities for Taiwanese businessmen on the Chinese mainland.
Guangdong has initiated close to 100 youth entrepreneurship projects targeted at Taiwan in the last three years.
The conference also focused on further relaxing the restrictions on access to Taiwan-funded enterprises, optimizing the investment and operating environment of Taiwanese businessmen, supporting Taiwanese-funded enterprises to develop the entity economy and sharing reform opportunities with Taiwanese enterprises.
A view of Taipei. /VCG Photo
A view of Taipei. /VCG Photo
GBA contains "nine cities and two districts" covering 57,000 square kilometers with a population of 66.71 million. Siew Wanchang, chairman of Cross-Strait CEO Summit Taiwan branch said that the total GDP of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao was 1.3 trillion U.S. dollars in 2016, more than twice that of Taiwan.
It is predicted that by 2022, the total GDP of GBA will surpass the Tokyo Bay Area of Japan and the New York Bay Area of the United States, and rank first among four major bay areas in the world.
The economic and financial momentum from GBA could be conducive to the globalization of enterprises across the Taiwan Strait and will inevitably exert a radiating influence on Taiwan, officials say, thus promoting the transformation and upgrading of cross-strait economies and trade.
(Lai Shiwen contributed to this story)