Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Non-Fiction 2020complete | Page 20
The Greater Bay Area is a megalopolis
Ching Chung Hau Po Woon Primary School, Kwok, Siu Chung - 12
‘What is Greater Bay Area?’ ‘Where is it?’ ‘When and why did Greater Bay Area appear?’
These are the questions that usually knock my brain and drive me to explore more about this “mysterious
zone”!
In fact, more than half of Hong Kong’s young people have never heard about the “Greater Bay
Area’’’s(GBA) development plan, this kind of ignorance means we are continually missing the development
opportunities there – what a pity!
I would like to sum up certain truths and facts I have researched as below :
GBA’s master plan concept was primarily announced on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the return
of Hong Kong to China.
Greater Bay Area (GBA) physically is neither a city or province, for easy understanding we can describe it as
a ZONE.
GBA consists of total eleven cities which encircle Pearl River Delta area, nine of them are situated in
Guangdong Province. These eleven cities include :
Hong Kong
Macau
Guangzhou
Shenzhen
Zhuhai
Foshan
Jiangmen
Zhaoqing
Huizhou
Dongguan
Zhongshan
More than 70 million people are living in GBA – nearly 10 times more than Hong Kong’s people right
now!
Total Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in GBA reach RMB 10.49 trillion, comparable to the world’s tenth
largest economy.
The GBA development plan is not only a local and regional strategy, in fact it is a long-term plan at the
national level leaded by China government.
So what are the new opportunities and challenges can we dig out from this important plan? And the
impacts towards Hong Kong? I believe we need to analyze these issues in the following aspects :
Complementarity effect among cities
Each city has its own special strength and characteristics – Hong Kong is famous in finance, logistics,
professional service and asset management; Guangzhou, Dongguan and Foshan are well-known for their
large scale production plants; Shenzhen, needless to say, has turned into “Silicon Valley” in China – see how
well Tencent, Huawei and DJI perform in the world stage; and we are always easily entranced by Macau’s
fantastic tourism industry. In GBA, each city can contribute her advantage and strength, complement
other’s weakness for the aim of spurring the mutual economic growth. This is especially important for
Hong Kong as can concentrate effort in developing certain industries, but without considering some inborn
hindrances such as land and manpower shortage.
Seamless connection of infrastructure facilities and public services