One official there referred to what's called the Greater Bay Area -- it's essentially a region that includes the Hong Kong SAR, the Macao SAR, and nine cities in southern China's Guangdong Province, including two of the country's largest, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. It is designed to enhance regional cooperation among the major cities of the Pearl River Delta. For further regional integration, the newly-completed Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge and the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong High-Speed Railway will significantly reduce travel times.

The Greater Bay Area covers 56-thousand square kilometers, and hosts a population of more than 67 million people. Annual GDP is about 1.3 trillion US dollars. This area, to a large extent, comprises manufacturing, innovative technology and services sectors.

And driving Hong Kong's economic growth are these four major pillars -- financial services, trading and logistics, tourism, and professional and producer services.

2016 figures show these four industries contributed more than 1.3 trillion Hong Kong dollars to the city's GDP - or about 57 percent, and created 1.8 million jobs. Hong Kong is expected to make the best of its strength to fuel the area's future development.