Platforms for promoting bay area cooperation to get further support

GUANGZHOU -- Guangdong provincial authorities have vowed to further support the joint building of platforms for promoting Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao cooperation and development, including Qianhai of Shenzhen, Nansha of Guangzhou and Hengqin of Zhuhai.

The move comes as part of the action plan for 2018 to 2020, which was recently published online by Guangdong's leading group for advancing the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area construction, boasting a total of 100 key measures.

Great efforts will be made to optimize and improve Qianhai as a modern services cooperation area, including exploring ways to ease restrictions on market entry and business development of Hong Kong and Macao investors in setting up banking, securities and insurance institutions in Shenzhen and conducting green finance cooperation between Shenzhen and Hong Kong, the plan said.

The plan stressed building Nansha into a model area for Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao partnership, saying Guangdong will step up all-round cooperation with Hong Kong and Macao to expedite construction within the Greater Bay Area's international shipping, finance and sci-tech innovation sectors.

Vowing to advance deeper cooperation among Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao in Hengqin, Zhuhai, the plan called for high standards in building an international leisure and tourism island in Hengqin.

Guangdong will support the development of the Shenzhen-Hong Kong science and technology innovation cooperation zone, the plan said, calling for establishing an open scientific research system that is jointly built and shared by Shenzhen and Hong Kong, according to the plan.

Chinese authorities in February 2019 unveiled the outline development plan for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, aiming to develop the region into "a role model of high-quality development."

The bay area consists of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region , the Macao Special Administrative Region, as well as nine cities in Guangdong province -- Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Foshan, Huizhou, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Jiangmen and Zhaoqing.