HK CPPCC member: Bay Area a window for nation's development

The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area serves as a window for Hong Kong young people to comprehensively learn the nation’s development, a Hong Kong member of the nation’s top political advisory body said on Wednesday.

Chan Cheuk-hay, a Hong Kong member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), said many young people in the city have vague or limited knowledge about the progress the country has made.

The Bay Area offers chances for them to get a full picture of it through interacting with the nine mainland Bay Area cities in Guangdong province, Chan said.

He added that closer interaction between Hong Kong and the mainland is expected thanks to the commissioning of major cross-boundary infrastructure, such as the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, and the implementation of a series of facilitating measures that make it more convenient for Hong Kong people to live, study and work in the mainland.

Chan, who is also the president and principal of the Hong Kong College of Technology, said the Bay Area also provides soil where Hong Kong youths could plant their dreams.

He said the college has teamed up with Pacific Coffee of China Resources Group to launch a program that helps Hong Kong youths to seek development opportunities in the Bay Area.

According to Chan, students who join the program could receive internship offers, subsidies, funding and training on operating business.

Chan made the remarks as at the CPPCC “members’ passage” at the Great Hall of the People on Wednesday morning with two fellow members, before joining the closing meeting of the second session of the 13th CPPCC National Committee.

Liang Hua, a CPPCC National Committee member from Macao who also spoke at the passage, said the Bay Area blueprint has offered unprecedented opportunities for Macao, a small economy with limited natural resources and a small population, to connect with the broad market of the mainland.

He called on Macao people to grasp the opportunities for better development of the special administrative region.

The Bay Area comprises nine cities in Guangdong and the two SARs of Hong Kong and Macao. The central government unveiled the development outline of the region on Feb 18, aiming to turn the region into an international bay area to rival the world’s top city clusters in San Francisco, New York and Tokyo.