Xinhua News Agency reporter.
Five years ago, the Communist Party of China publicly released the "Outline Development Plan for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area". Over the past five years, as one of the regions with the highest degree of openness and the strongest economic vitality in China, the Greater Bay Area has accelerated the development of science and technology innovation industries, continuously expanded software and hardware connectivity, and developed in depth through synergy and integration, effectively promoting the integration of Hong Kong and Macao into the overall development of the country.
Qianhai Stone in Shenzhen, photographed on November 24, 2023. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Mao Siqian.
The progress of the science and technology innovation industry has accelerated.
The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area includes the Hong Kong and Macao Special Administrative Regions, as well as the nine Pearl River Delta cities in Guangdong, including Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Zhuhai.
Last year, the Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou cluster ranked second in the world for the fourth consecutive year in the 2023 edition of the Global Innovation Index "Science and Technology Clusters" released by the World Intellectual Property Organization.
Gong Guoping, Secretary of the Party Leadership Group of the Guangdong Provincial Department of Science and Technology, said that the world's top science and technology clusters rely on the efforts of the Greater Bay Area to continuously improve the whole process innovation ecological chain of "basic research + technological research + achievement transformation + science and technology finance + talent support", continuously optimize the regional innovation system, and promote the construction of an international science and technology innovation center.
At present, the intensity of R&D investment in the Greater Bay Area exceeds 34%, R&D investment, effective number of invention patents, PCT international patent applications and other major scientific and technological indicators have maintained the first place in the country.
Relying on the continuous improvement of innovation capabilities, the industrial competitiveness of the Greater Bay Area is also constantly improving.
Hengqin Financial Island, Zhuhai (taken on November 4, 2023, drone**) Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Liu Dawei.
On the shore of Lingding Ocean, in the Zhongshan factory of Honglida, a Hong Kong-funded enterprise close to the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Corridor, the indicator lights of the working machines are flashing frequently, and several machine trucks are shuttling between injection molding equipment. Relying on digital technology, autonomous mobile robots operate in an orderly manner along the planned route in the factory area, allowing this "lights-out factory" to realize unmanned production in the whole process from feeding, parts processing to logistics.
Honglida has been working in Guangdong for many years. With the rise of Guangdong's manufacturing industry and the development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, Honglida and its partner, the Hong Kong Productivity Council, have collaborated to develop an artificial intelligence-based digital management system, realizing the digitalization of the whole process from R&D to mass production.
Deeply involved in the process of transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry in the Greater Bay Area, Hong Kong and Macao enterprises represented by Honglida are reaping dividends in their development. "The company's per capita revenue in 2023 will increase by about 138% compared with 2018, the output value will increase significantly, and the profit will also increase significantly. Cai Junjie, founder and CEO of Honglida Group, said.
At present, the Greater Bay Area has 8 trillion-yuan industrial clusters such as a new generation of electronic information, green petrochemicals, smart home appliances, and automobiles, and the development of emerging industries such as new energy vehicles, new energy storage, and solar photovoltaic has accelerated.
Driven by the vigorous development of hundreds of industries and industries, the total economic output of the Greater Bay Area is expected to exceed 13 in 20236 trillion yuan, the scale of the economy has reached a new level.
Hardware and software connectivity continues to expand.
In recent years, infrastructure connectivity in the Greater Bay Area has been accelerating with the connection of rapid transportation.
According to data released by the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge Border Inspection Station on February 14, the port hit a new high in passenger and vehicle flow during the Spring Festival: the single-day passenger flow reached 1440,000 person-times, and the single-day inbound and outbound traffic exceeded 1 for the first time80,000 vehicles, both set new records.
With the successive implementation of the policies of "Macao cars going north" and "Hong Kong cars going north", the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge has become one of the popular channels for Hong Kong and Macao tourists to travel "north", and the super-large sea-crossing bridge, which was officially opened in 2018, has become more and more busy.
After the bridge was opened to traffic, it opened up the 'one-hour living circle' of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, and expanded the 'circle of friends' of the bridge's foreign trade. At present, the import and export goods through the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge port have covered all provinces in the mainland, and the market involves more than 230 countries (regions). Lin Zhiying, director of Sinopec (Hong Kong) ** chain, said.
Hong Kong cityscape (taken on March 27, 2019, drone**) by Xinhua News Agency (photo by Qiu Huo).
The rapid construction of infrastructure has facilitated the "hard connectivity" of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, and the continuous efforts at the policy level have laid a good foundation for the "soft connectivity" of the three places.
At the end of last year, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) issued the Three-Year Action Plan for Building a World-Class Business Environment in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, setting a "timetable" for the Greater Bay Area to build a market-oriented, law-based and international business environment.
The internationalization of the Greater Bay Area should be based on the integration of international rules, and the first step is to realize the convergence of rules and smooth mechanisms between Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, and enhance the level of market integration in the Greater Bay Area. Wang Bin, general manager of PricewaterhouseCoopers Advisory Services (Guangdong), said.
Founded in Hong Kong in 2019, Digital Collection China (Hong Kong)** has witnessed the development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. Fu Rao, the company's co-founder and CEO, said that his company applied to settle in the Hong Kong Science Park and received the support of the Entrepreneurial Talent Program, and successively received free office space and tax exemptions, awards and subsidies in the mainland.
Over the past five years, Guangdong Province has taken the "Bay Area Connect" project as the starting point, actively promoted the convergence of rules and mechanisms with Hong Kong and Macao, facilitated Hong Kong and Macao residents to come to Guangdong for employment, entrepreneurship and life, promoted the efficient cross-border flow of elements such as logistics, capital flow and information flow, and improved the level of market integration in the Greater Bay Area, and achieved initial results.
In-depth development of synergy and integration.
During the Spring Festival, on the 59th floor of the Macau Tower, dozens of venture capitalists were discussing the theme of "Opportunities for Macao Youth Entrepreneurship Brought by the Closure of Hengqin" to the 59th floor of the Macau Tower.
In 2023, Yao Jincheng, the founder of Austron Times, will move the company from Macau to Hengqin and set up the management of Zhuhai Hengqin Austral Times Incubator***He believes that after the closure of Hengqin, the opportunities are broader, and he hopes to help young entrepreneurs develop in the In-depth Cooperation Zone with the help of Hengqin's incubator.
Macao (front) and Zhuhai are separated by a strip of water (taken on July 8, 2022, drone**) by Xinhua News Agency (photo by Guo Jingwen).
The Plan for the Moderate Economic Diversification of the Macao Special Administrative Region (2024-2028) promulgated on 1 November 2023 proposes that since the establishment of the Guangdong-Macao In-Depth Cooperation Zone in Hengqin two years ago, with the strong support of the People's Republic of China, Guangdong and Macao have comprehensively promoted various construction projects such as industrial development, integration of people's livelihood, convergence of rules and docking of mechanisms, and the coordinated development of Macao and Hengqin is gradually becoming a new growth point for Macao's economy. The in-depth development of the Greater Bay Area will create favorable conditions for Macao to integrate into the overall development of the country and achieve regional synergy.
Stroll along Lovers' Road in Zhuhai, taste egg tarts at St. Paul's in Macau, and watch fireworks ...... in Victoria Harbour in Hong KongDuring the Spring Festival, the best logistics in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is hot. Convenient transportation and abundant resources for cultural and tourism activities draw the background color of the deep integration of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao.
In 2023, about 53 million Hong Kong residents will travel north to the mainland, of which 40 million will pass through the port of Shenzhen. At present, more than 80,000 Hong Kong and Macao students are studying in primary and secondary schools in Guangdong, and more than 200,000 Hong Kong and Macao residents are working and developing in Guangdong.
A spokesman for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Development Office of the Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR**) said that in the future, the HKSAR** will actively make good use of Hong Kong's advantages of "relying on the motherland and connecting with the world" under the "one country, two systems" to support Hong Kong people and enterprises to make good use of the opportunities in the Bay Area, and at the same time assist mainland cities in the Bay Area to explore the international market, give full play to Hong Kong's role as a two-way platform, and make greater contributions to the country's high-quality development and high-level opening up.
The main person in charge of the Guangdong Provincial Greater Bay Area Office said that at present, the construction of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area has entered a new stage of speeding up and shifting gears and advancing in depth. Guangdong will closely focus on the new positioning of "one point and two places", take the comprehensive deepening of reform and the comprehensive expansion of opening up as the fundamental driving force, strengthen the synergy and linkage with Hong Kong and Macao, deepen the all-round integrated development, promote the construction of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area in the new era and new stage, and accelerate the construction of a first-class bay area and a world-class city cluster with vitality and international competitiveness. (Reporter Wang Pan, Ma Xiaocheng, Hong Zehua, Lu Yun, Zhang Yichi, Li Hanfang).