In the Zhongshan factory of Honglida, a Hong Kong-funded enterprise located on the bank of Lingdingyang and close to the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Link, the indicator lights of the operating machines flash frequently, and several robot vehicles are shuttling between the injection molding equipment. Relying on digital technology, autonomous mobile robots operate in an orderly manner along the planned routes in the factory area, allowing this "lights-out factory" to achieve unmanned production from loading, parts processing to logistics.

Honglida has been working in Guangdong for many years. With the rise of Guangdong's manufacturing industry and the development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, Honglida and its partner, the Hong Kong Productivity Council, have jointly developed a digital management system based on artificial intelligence, realizing the digitalization of the entire process of products from research and development to mass production.

Hong Kong and Macao enterprises represented by Honglida are reaping dividends from their development by deeply participating in the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry in the Greater Bay Area. "The company's per capita revenue in 2023 will increase by about 138% compared with 2018, the output value will increase significantly, and the profit will also increase significantly," said Cai Junjie, founder and CEO of Honglida Group.

At present, the Greater Bay Area has eight trillion-yuan industrial clusters, including new generation electronic information, green petrochemicals, smart home appliances, and automobiles. Emerging industries such as new energy vehicles, new energy storage, and solar photovoltaics are accelerating their development.

Driven by the vigorous development of hundreds of industries, the total economic volume of the Greater Bay Area is expected to exceed 13.6 trillion yuan in 2023, and the economic scale will reach a new level.

Soft and hard connectivity continues to expand

In recent years, with the connection of rapid transportation, the interconnection of infrastructure in the Greater Bay Area is accelerating.

Data released by the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge Border Inspection Station on February 14 showed that the port set a new record for passenger and vehicle traffic during the Spring Festival: the daily inbound and outbound passenger flow reached 144,000, and the daily inbound and outbound vehicle flow exceeded 18,000 for the first time, both breaking records.

With the implementation of the "Macau cars going north" and "Hong Kong cars going north" policies, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge has become one of the popular channels for Hong Kong and Macao passengers to "go north". This super-large cross-sea bridge, which was officially opened in 2018, has become increasingly busy.

"After the opening of the bridge, it has opened up the "1-hour living circle" of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, and expanded the bridge's foreign trade "circle of friends". At present, the import and export goods receiving and sending places through the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge port have covered all provinces in the mainland, and the market involves more than 230 countries (regions). "said Lin Zhiying, supply chain director of Sinopec (Hong Kong) Co., Ltd.

Hong Kong city landscape (photo taken on March 27, 2019, drone photo). Xinhua News Agency (Photo by Qiu Huo)

The rapid construction of infrastructure has facilitated the "hard connection" of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, and the continuous efforts at the policy level have laid a good foundation for the "soft connection" of the three places.

At the end of last year, the National Development and Reform Commission issued the "Three-Year Action Plan for Building an International First-Class Business Environment in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area", which set a "timetable" for the Greater Bay Area to create a market-oriented, legal and international business environment.

"The internationalization of the Greater Bay Area must be based on the integration of international rules, and the first step is to achieve the connection of rules and smooth mechanisms between Guangdong and Hong Kong and Macao, and to enhance the level of market integration in the Greater Bay Area." said Wang Bin, general manager of PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting Services (Guangdong) Co., Ltd.

Shuzang China (Hong Kong) Co., Ltd., established in Hong Kong in 2019, has witnessed the development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. Fu Rao, co-founder and CEO of the company, said that his company applied to settle in the Hong Kong Science Park and obtained fund support from the Entrepreneurial Talent Program. In the mainland, it has successively obtained free office space provided by the government and tax exemptions and rewards.

Over the past five years, Guangdong Province has taken the "Bay Area Pass" project as a starting point to actively promote the connection of rules and mechanisms with Hong Kong and Macao, facilitate Hong Kong and Macao residents to come to Guangdong for employment, entrepreneurship and life, promote the efficient cross-border flow of factors such as personnel, logistics, capital and information, and improve the level of market integration in the Greater Bay Area, and have achieved initial results.

Synergistic integration and in-depth development

During the Spring Festival, on the 59th floor of the Macau Tower, accompanied by fireworks blooming in the night sky, dozens of venture capitalists were discussing the theme of "Opportunities brought to Macau youth entrepreneurship by the closure of Hengqin".

In 2023, Yao Jincheng, the founder of Ao Chuang Times, moved the company from Macau to Hengqin and established Zhuhai Hengqin Ao Chuang Times Incubator Management Co., Ltd. He believes that there are more opportunities after the closure of Hengqin, and hopes to use Hengqin's incubator to help young entrepreneurs develop in the Shenzhen-Hebei region.

Macau (front) and Zhuhai are close neighbors (photo taken on July 8, 2022, drone photo). Xinhua News Agency (Photo by Guo Jingwen)

The "Plan for Moderately Diversified Economic Development of the Macao Special Administrative Region (2024-2028)" published on November 1, 2023 proposed that in the two years since the establishment of the Hengqin Guangdong-Macao Deep Cooperation Zone, with the strong support of the central government, Guangdong and Macao have comprehensively promoted various construction work such as industrial development, people's livelihood integration, rule connection, and mechanism docking. The coordinated development of Macao and Hengqin is gradually becoming a new growth point for Macao's economy. The in-depth promotion of the construction of the Greater Bay Area has created favorable conditions for Macao to integrate into the overall national development and achieve regional linkage development.

Walk along the Lovers' Road in Zhuhai, taste egg tarts at the Ruins of St. Paul's in Macau, and watch fireworks at Victoria Harbor in Hong Kong...During the Spring Festival, the flow of people and goods in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area was hot. Convenient transportation and rich cultural and tourism activity resources have painted the background of the deep integration of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao.

Data shows that the Greater Bay Area has a prosperous flow of people. In 2023, about 53 million Hong Kong residents will go north to the mainland, of which 40 million will go through the Shenzhen-Hong Kong port. At present, more than 80,000 Hong Kong and Macao students are studying in primary and secondary schools in Guangdong, and more than 200,000 Hong Kong and Macao residents are working and developing in Guangdong.

A spokesman for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Development Office of the Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government said that in the future, the SAR government will actively make good use of Hong Kong's advantages of "backed by the motherland and connected to the world" under the "one country, two systems" policy, support Hong Kong people and Hong Kong enterprises to make good use of the opportunities in the Bay Area, and assist mainland cities in the Bay Area to open up international markets, give full play to Hong Kong's role as a two-way platform, and make greater contributions to the country's promotion of high-quality development and high-level opening up.

The main person in charge of the Guangdong Provincial Greater Bay Area Office said that at present, the construction of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area has entered a new stage of accelerating and shifting gears and advancing in depth. Guangdong will closely focus on the new positioning of "one point and two places", take comprehensive deepening of reform and comprehensive expansion of opening up as the fundamental driving force, strengthen coordination and linkage with Hong Kong and Macao, deepen all-round integrated development, and deepen the construction of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area in the new era and new stage, and accelerate the construction of a first-class bay area and world-class city cluster with vitality and international competitiveness. (Reporters Wang Pan, Ma Xiaocheng, Hong Zehua, Lu Yun, Zhang Yichi, Li Hanfang)

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