Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Non-Fiction 2020 | Page 29
Hong Kong Young Writers Awards 2020
A Dream not Shared by All
Harrow International School Hong Kong, Webb, Stephanie – 15
Imagine a utopia. A place where bullet trains and monorails glide effortlessly, winding
in and out of different districts. A place where towering skyscrapers stretch miles into the
sky, creating a labyrinth of glass and concrete. A place where robots, instead of humans, offer
their services in restaurants and stores. An urban cluster of cities where anything can be made
possible, with a population twice the size of Canada.
This is already becoming a reality. It will be known as the Greater Bay Area (GBA).
It is Mainland China’s ambitious plan to establish an international all-in-one innovation/
entertainment/ financial hub.
How do they plan to do this?
The plan entails integrating and developing the nine cities of Shenzhen, Guangzhou,
Foshan, Dongguan, Zhuhai, Zhongshan, Huizhou, Zhaoqing, Jiangmen in Guangdong
Province and the two special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau.
Although this seems like a lot of cities, it only really takes up 0.6% of China’s land mass
with the population of the GBA, exceeding 69 million, accounting for 5% of China’s total
population.
However, what is most impressive about the Greater Bay Area is that its monetary output
(Gross Domestic Product or GDP) per capita (or per person) at US$23,000 already exceeds the
two other major Chinese city clusters of Jing Jin Ji (Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei) at US$13,000 and
Yangtze River Delta at US$11,000.
With further development, the Greater Bay Area could become the powerhouse of the
whole of China, accounting for an even more significant percentage of China’s GDP than
its current 12%. With further integration supported by government policies, the GBA is
expected to rival or even overtake the three largest bay areas in the world - Tokyo, New York
and San Francisco!
In order to fully understand how China is planning on accomplishing this ambitious task,
we will examine the blueprint of the GBA plan carefully.
The fundamental idea is to leverage on the existing strengths of the various cities, so that
each complements the others, rather than competing.
Hong Kong and Shenzhen will play the role of the international finance centres.
As it stands, Hong Kong already operates the world’s largest offshore Renminbi (RMB)
business and financing centre. Generally speaking, when companies in the Mainland want to
expand their businesses, instead of borrowing money from banks, they might consider raising
this money through listing on the stock markets, known as Initial Public Offerings (IPOs), or
selling bonds, a type of debt, to investors.
This is where Hong Kong comes in with its unique financial service offerings. Mainland
China does not allow free exchangeability of RMB into other currencies such as the US
dollar (USD). In addition, the Mainland also restricts capital inflow/outflow i.e. how much
money can be brought in and out of China. This has given Hong Kong an opportunity to
become an important financial intermediary that connects the Mainland to the rest of the
world. Hong Kong has helped many mainland companies tap into a vast pool of foreign
investors by conducting their IPOs on the Hong Kong stock market as well as selling
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