Hong Kong Press Ta Kung Pao said that the official development plan for the Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao Greater bay area, which has been discussed for a long time, would be announced in the next week.
On January 18，Shenzhen government report was released and showed that Shenzhen’s GDP in 2018 hit RMB2.42 trillion yuan, ranking 5th in Asia. Before that, Guangzhou’s GDP in 2018 was also reported to be RMB2.3 trillion yuan. Up to now, although HongKong’GDP data is not released officially, shining performance in economic growth of these cities in Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao Greater bay area attract more global attention.
The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, made up of nine cities in Guangdong province plus Hong Kong and Macao, will become the largest of the world’s top four bay area commercial regions as well as a top industrial, high-tech, financial and transportation zone.
At about 56,000 square kilometers, the Greater Bay Area is larger than Tokyo Bay, the second-largest bay area worldwide, at about 36,900 sq km. The total GDP contributed by all 11 cities in the Bay Area stood at 11.7 trillion yuan. According to the latest estimate by real estate consulting firm CBRE, the Greater Bay Area will become the world’s top bay area by 2020, when its regional GDP will surpass that of all other bay areas.
In the 19th CPC National Congress, President Xi Jinping said, “Central government would give priority to developing the Greater Bay Area, and boost cooperation between Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, to enhance regional cooperation throughout the Pearl delta.”
Economic role
Hong Kong, Guangzhou and Shenzhen have dominated the region for decades, with the highest GDPs and economic growth.
Hong Kong continues to play a major role as one of the world’s leading financial centers. It is a bridge to connect China and global market. Shenzhen is known as China’s Silicon Valley. It has world-renowned technology giants such as Tencent, Huawei, ZTE and DJI. The number of high-tech enterprises in Shenzhen is the highest in the country, and the strength of Shenzhen’s scientific and technological innovation has entered the center of the world stage. As the political and economic center of the traditional Guangdong region, Guangzhou is irreplaceable and can radiate other cities in area. Besides, Dongguan, Foshan, Zhongshan are famous manufacturing industry base.
Talents flow
Prospects appear bright for young people in the area. The opening of the bridge and express rail link will provide additional potential, allowing for greater workplace mobility.
The Bay Area holds promise for established businesses. Steven Lam Hoi-yuen is one example. The co-founder of GOGOVAN, a company in Hong Kong offering a platform for van hire services in Asia, joined a Hong Kong youth delegation and visited cities in The Greater bay area in June.
He said the Greater Bay Area development plan has presented a wide opening for Hong Kong’s young people, and he suggested young people be more open-minded about embracing China’s developing economic power and flex their muscles in the Bay Area.
High-tech Industry and Venture Capital
It is the core content of the construction of Guangdong, Hong Kong, Macao Great Bay Area to build it into a global science and technology innovation center with innovative elements and strong endogenous innovation ability, comparable to the world-famous Bay Area. At the same time, we have created a world-class scientific and technological enterprise. DJI, when it was founded ten years ago, landed in Shenzhen from a research and development project of HKUST.
The development of science and technology innovation enterprises cannot be separated from the help of capital. Through sorting out various types of investment institutions with investment performance in Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao Bay Area, 2055 of them are VC, PE, strategic investors and FOF, among which PE and VC are the main investment institutions, accounting for 80% of the total, which provides strong capital support for the entrepreneurship and innovation enterprises in Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao Bay Area.
In Shenzhen, more than 50,000 investment institutions, especially VC/PE, have registered, and more than 10,000 have actually operated. In the past two years, the municipal government has injected 100 billion yuan to promote the guidance of venture capital institutions. Among them, about 70% of all district governments have injected capital. For the first time, 5 billion Angel funds have been set up in various regions to support excellent and promising small and micro-enterprises.
In Hongkong, Professor Li Zexiang of HKUST, in collaboration with Mr. Pony Ma, founder of Tencent and Mr. Neil SHEN, global executive partner of Sequoia Capital, launched the Hong Kong X Project to tap the potential of young people’s innovation and entrepreneurship in Hong Kong and promote scientific research in Hong Kong from laboratory to application market.
Bright future
In fact, it is a plan for cities in this area to play their own advantages and avoid shortcomings, so that the region will gradually form a development model of “Hong Kong, Macao + Mainland + Service + Capital + Industry”, while avoiding overcapacity and fierce internal competition in urban division of labor, facility construction, industrial structure, and port function, achieving a rational coordination mechanism.
Once the official development plan is released, the path of the Greater Bay area will be clearer.
Authors: LIU, Zhuoyang 20559100; LIN, Zhiyan 20560264
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