Acting mayor outlines municipality's advantages

Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province, plans to participate actively in the creation of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area in the years to come.

According to Guo Yonghang, the city's acting mayor, the southern metropolis will promote exchange and cooperation with the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions and other cities in the GBA to accelerate the realization of the area's ambitious blueprint.

Guo made his remarks during a video speech at the opening ceremony of the GBA Development Forum (Guangzhou) & Vision China on Wednesday.

As a key driver of the GBA and transportation hub for the southern region, Guangzhou recently unveiled an action plan to help young people from Hong Kong and Macao start businesses, find employment and study and live in the city, which is less than an hour from each SAR by high-speed train, Guo said.

A commercial center and trading port for well over a thousand years, and now eager to attract talent from around the world to support sustainable economic growth, Guangzhou has a rich cultural heritage and a large population of more than 16 million. It offers myriad opportunities for young entrepreneurs, businesses and job-seekers from Hong Kong and Macao.

Despite the impact of the pandemic over the past two years, the GBA has been developing rapidly, the acting mayor said.

"Infrastructure connectivity and cooperation in new and high-tech innovation and between industrial chains have also been strengthened," he said.

The Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong high-speed railway has begun operations, the new Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou) campus will soon be finished, and the international headquarters and manufacturing site for Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Holdings has begun operations in Macao.

"All these projects demonstrate a solid foundation of cooperation, and the broad prospects for development between Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Macao," Guo said.

The GBA is comprised of nine cities in Guangdong－Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Foshan, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Huizhou, Jiangmen and Zhaoqing－plus the Hong Kong and Macao SARs.

The area generated GDP of about 11.5 trillion yuan ($1.8 trillion) in 2020, more than 10 percent of the national total, and with advanced rail and highway networks linking the major cities of Guangdong to Hong Kong and Macao, travel between them has been reduced to a matter of an hour or less.