Co-operation and bilateral development between Macao and cities in the neighbouring Greater Bay Area (GBA) were discussed at length by Chief Executive Ho Iat Seng during a whistlestop tour of the region earlier this month. Ho led a delegation of high-ranking government officials on a four-day working visit to eight GBA cities between 8 and 11 January. He said that the tour sought to define a path for Macao to contribute further to the GBA’s development.
Ho met with Li Xi, the Guangdong Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Secretary, as well as other senior GBA officials, over the four days. Li said during a meeting with the Chief Executive on 9 January at Guangzhou’s Zhudao Hotel that he was looking forward to extending Guangdong-Macao co-operation and that further efforts should be made to optimise existing mechanisms and connections between both cities, as well as to advance the development of the Guangdong-Macao Intensive Co-operation Zone in Hengqin, a free economic zone which will have international standards for market operations, investment and trade rules, and financing systems.
Li also said during the meeting that further efforts should also be made to promote further exchanges among young people in Macao and the GBA, to strengthen joint COVID-19 prevention and control work between the two locations and to introduce a greater number of policies and measures that benefit people who move between the other cities in the GBA and Macao either to work or to live. Furthermore, he underlined that President Xi Jinping has issued multiple important directives concerning Hengqin’s development and Macao-Zhuhai ties to which Ho pointed out that a basic framework for the initiative was ready. Li also said that Guangdong will spare no effort to support Ho’s ongoing efforts, based on the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ principle, to achieve the adequate diversification of Macao’s economy and advance the development of the GBA.
The pandemic was also one of the important topics during Ho’s tour. During a meeting with Guangdong officials in Guangzhou on 10 January, the Chief Executive expressed his gratitude to the province for supporting Macao in the fight against COVID-19. “Guangdong not only provided Macao with strong assistance in fighting the disease and keeping the food supply stable during the pandemic,” he said, “but also has offered enormous support in terms of the resumption – since July – of the flow of people from Guangdong to be able to travel to Macao under the facilitated individual travel scheme.” Guangdong has also helped people from Macao travel quarantine-free to the mainland, he added.
“Macao is a safe city in terms of risk from COVID-19,” Ho pointed out in the meeting and was adamant that the Macao government would not relax its epidemic-control efforts, despite the success of its measures so far. He also said that the Macao government would further reinforce its efforts to achieve economic recovery and diversification, stepping up public investment in infrastructure to protect city residents’ employment prospects.
The GBA covers both the Macao and Hong Kong Special Administrative Regions, as well as nine cities across the Pearl River Delta, namely Guangzhou, Huizhou, Dongguan, Shenzhen, Jiangmen, Zhuhai, Zhongshan, Foshan and Zhaoqing. It is around 56,000 square kilometres in size – which is about three times the size of the San Francisco Bay Area in the US – and has a combined population of more than 72 million people together with a GDP of more than US$1.679 billion (MOP 13.41 billion). In terms of area, the biggest cities in the GBA are Zhaoqing, Huizhou, Jiangmen and Guangzhou – and it was in the latter that Ho’s delegation visited a pharmaceutical firm during his trip. Macao is looking to diversify its economy and one of its focuses is its Traditional Chinese Medicine industry, so this could be seen as a key fact-finding visit to the largest single herb production company in southern China.
Working visit to the GBA
Chief Executive Ho Iat Seng visited eight cities in the Greater Bay Area during his four-day tour. Here’s seven of the locations he travelled to and what topics he discussed with city leaders in each of them.
ZHAOQING
Water supply to Macao
Agriculture
Traditional Chinese Medicine
Cultural affairs, tourism and education
Financial services
FOSHAN
Health
Tourism and culture
Gastronomy
Science and technology
Traditional Chinese Medicine
JIANGMEN
Healthcare industry
Financial services
Information technology
Youth entrepreneurship
Transport networks
Tourism, cultural and creative industries
Medical services
Education
Services for the elderly
GUANGZHOU
Health
GBA Development
Macao -Zhuhai ties
Hengqin
Diversification
ZHONGSHAN
Health
Cultural
Industrial development
Science and technology
Cultural affairs, tourism and education
Biopharmaceutical industry
HUIZHOU
Health
Traditional Chinese Medicine
Scientific research projects
DONGGUAN
Health
Scientific technology development
Research
Manufacturing and production
Training for service and hotel industries
Cultural affairs and economy
Industrial sector
Platform for economic
co-operation with the
Portuguese-speaking countries
SHENZHEN
Health
Tourism, education and creative industries
Scientific research
University laboratories exchanges
Platform for the economic relations with the Portuguese-speaking countries
