New policy to spur rise of strategic bay area

China will not set a binding growth target in the development plan of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, which will be released early this year, but will use a number of indexes to measure key fields such as innovation and trade, according to a former vice-minister of the nation's top economic regulator.

The bay area connecting Hong Kong, Macao and a number of cities in Guangdong province has been listed as one of the nation's top three regions of strategic importance to be built up this year, according to a document from the National Development and Reform Commission viewed by China Daily.

Unlike the other two - the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and the Yangtze River economic belt - the region, with current economic output surpassing that of the San Francisco Bay Area, is set to become a global leading center of technology innovation, finance and trade by the end of 2035, according to the commission.