HK Chief Executive: HK has clear development focus
CGTN
["china"]
Years in the making, the Greater Bay Area blueprint has provided an overall direction for cooperation between the Hong Kong and Macao Special Administrative Regions and south China's Guangdong Province.
Officials from the three areas attended the symposium on the Outline Development Plan for the Bay Area in Hong Kong on Thursday.
All three regions' governments helped co-organize the event, saying each has a unique role to play.
They plan to reach their collective goal of building a vibrant and innovative world-class bay area by 2022.
HK Chief Executive Carrie Lam said, "Hong Kong is a highly open and international city. With its open and easy business environment and quality professional services, we can combine these advantages with the vast market of the nine cities in the Greater Bay Area. In fact, through coordinated development of the area, we can further enhance the status of HK as a financial, shipping, trade and aviation hub.”
Macao has comparable advantages as an economic and trade cooperation platform between China and Portuguese-speaking countries.
It also has room to expand its reputation as a global tourism and leisure center.
Rather than softening the application of "One Country, Two Systems" as some experts have suggested, the development outline shows that the intention is to take advantage of these differences to boost the Bay Area development as a whole.
The plan aims to strengthen Guangdong's position as the country's leading technology and industrial innovation center, and reinforce its role as a pilot zone for reform and opening-up. With both opportunities and challenges ahead, what's certain is the new chapter of cooperation between HK, Macao and the Chinese mainland.