Business leaders encouraged to seize GBA opportunities

Officials called on Hong Kong-based business groups attending a high-level seminar Friday to tap into more opportunities in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area to share the dividends of the nation's development.

The full-day event, themed "A New Journey with Greater opportunities - The Virtual Tour to the Greater Bay Area for Foreign Businesses in Hong Kong", gathered about 200 political heavyweights and business leaders from home and abroad.

Addressing the event, Liu Guangyuan, commissioner of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, said the Greater Bay Area's development reflects China's determination to open wider to the world, its opportunities in fostering a new development paradigm, and the SAR's strengths from getting on board the fast-train of China's development.

The commissioner's office will further support business groups to explore opportunities in the Bay Area, so that they can share the dividends of the region's development and benefit from Hong Kong's integration into the overall national development.

In a keynote speech, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor said companies in Hong Kong, which have a head start, will stand to reap opportunities from the Greater Bay Area.

The visionary Northern Metropolis plan unveiled by Lam earlier in her latest Policy Address in October also included ways to improve the infrastructure to facilitate the flow of people into the Bay Area, she added.

Lam said the Bay Area development is more than a regional development project, but a platform that would bring Hong Kong closer with mainland cities and enhance its international trade and cooperation.

Huang Liuquan, deputy head of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council, told attendees that in Hong Kong's future development, the "one country, two systems" policy and its unique strengths will remain unchanged.

Huang said the 14th Five-Year Plan and the Greater Bay Area both have provided great platforms for Hong Kong's development. He encouraged the chambers and enterprises, some of which have had a presence in the city for over a century, to seize more opportunities and continue to benefit from "one country, two systems" and Hong Kong's prosperity and stability.

Vice-chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission Cong Liang, in a speech, said, "A superior living, working, and traveling environment is coming into being" in the GBA.

Cong, also the vice-chairman of the Office of the Leading Group for the Development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, noted the progress made in the Bay Area's infrastructure and the flow of personnel, vehicles and goods with a deepened connectivity of institutions and mechanisms.

Many policies to support Hong Kong and Macao residents in the mainland are being rolled out in healthcare, education and entrepreneurship, Cong noted.

More exciting news will come, Cong said, as the plans for Nansha and the Lok Ma Chau Loop are also in the works. This came after a master plan of developing Hengqin and a plan to expand Shenzhen's Qianhai zone to build the Qianhai Shenzhen-Hong Kong Modern Service Industry Cooperation Zone, which were unveiled earlier this year.

Cong said these platforms will provide new momentum for the development of the GBA, and offer a new model for closer cooperation between the mainland, Hong Kong and Macao.